The Kimpetitive Edge
by MatthewC
Summary: Kim has a fierce competitive instinct, so why has she always been a cheerleader rather than a sports star?  When Kim sets her sights on playing tennis, she'll have opposition from the last person you'd expect.  Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

The darkness around the mansion was broken by a powerful beam of light illuminating Kim Possible as she ran. Even though the source was coming from directly in front of her, the sudden contrast in lighting was enough to briefly blind her.

"Ron!" she yelled, squinting to preserve her night vision.

"Sorry KP," Ron Stoppable responded from his ten yards off to the side. Trying to correct his mistake, he shifted the beam of the high-powered flashlight he was carrying past Kim, attempting to catch the target they had been pursuing through the darkness.

Kim and Ron were dressed in their usual mission clothes. In the light from Ron's flashlight, a dull reddish stain was briefly available on Kim's right shoulder, but it faded invisibly into the black of the shirt as soon as she was in darkness again.

The new angle of Ron's flashlight caught a figure ducking around a corner ahead.

"He's headed into the tennis courts!" shouted Kim, picking up the pace of her running.

Within seconds she reached the chain link gate, only to find in dismay that her target had taken the time to padlock it. This wasn't an obstacle that could delay Kim long, though. Retreating back a few steps to give herself room for a running start, she jumped high enough to grab the top of the fence and turned her momentum into a somersault over it, making a perfect landing on the other side.

A groan carried from behind her. "I'll be over in a minute," Ron assured her as he began climbing the chain links, going carefully to make sure he didn't fall off.

Not waiting on Ron, Kim advanced onto the nearest of the courts. She could see her quarry on the other side of the net, standing next to a machine by the serving line.

"Hey Kimberly, take this!" said the figure, touching a control on the machine. It immediately shot a fast tennis ball straight at Kim's head.

Kim didn't even bother to dodge the ball. With reflexes like a cat, she simply reached out and snatched the projectile from the air before it could hit her. "Pu-leeze. Like I'm afraid of a tennis ball. I may have run from the occasional golf ball, but I doubt these things are going to expl-"

Kim stopped in mid-sentence and sniffed the air, an odd look on her face. She looked at the tennis ball, only now realizing it was matted with a sticky black substance that smelled awful. "Eeeww! What's this thing covered with?"

"Fertilizer," announced her short opponent. "They use it in the greenhouse. It comes from cows. I thought it would be funny to dump some in this automatic server."

He flicked another couple of switches on the machine, which immediately began barraging Kim with an entire volley of tennis balls, more than any sane player would ever want to practice returning. Each and every ball was coated in the same 'fertilizer'.

Kim began dodging frantically. Not that any of balls would do her any serious damage if they hit, but the thought of carrying that smell around on her mission clothing for the rest of the night was enough to keep her ducking and weaving as though her life depended on it. In some ways, dodging the balls was actually harder than dodging death lasers. The thing about tennis balls was, they bounced. Sometimes they bounced at odd and unexpected angles that Kim couldn't predict. Dodging a ball when the machine shot it was easy. Dodging it on the rebound, while trying to get out of the way of the machine's next ball… that was a bit trickier. Especially since no one had turned the court lights on and it was still dark.

Just as she thought she was getting the hang of it, there came a humming as similar serving machine stationed at the next court down the line came to life. "Who needs more than one automatic tennis server?" Kim complained to the world at large, realizing what was about to happen.

Fortunately, a solution came readily at hand. Tumbling out of a flip, Kim ended up next to the back wall. Close enough to notice that someone had inadvertently left their tennis racquet out overnight. "Ah-hah!" she exclaimed in triumph, scooping it up.

With a flurry of swings, Kim began parrying the combined output of both automatic servers, as well as taking the odd swing to knock away most of the stinky balls that littered the court around her. With the racquet, she was able to send them exactly where she wanted, where she wouldn't have to touch or smell them.

Defense taken care of, Kim decided to go on the offense. The next ball she returned, she hit it straight back at the machine, aiming so precisely that she was able to jam it down the machine's firing barrel. Before the machine could launch another ball to clear the way, Kim quickly used the racquet to flip a few more balls from the ground and into the air (without touching them with her hands, naturally) and aimed them into the same small target. The machine responded by giving a strange beep as its safety mechanisms came into play, and it immediately powered down.

Kim then turned to the next machine, only to realize it had stopped without her interference. Though the darkness, she thought she could see something crawling atop it. Her suspicions were confirmed when "Gotit!" sounded off in Rufus's voice.

Kim smiled and waved a thanks in naked mole rat's direction. Now that that was taken care of, it only left-

"I got him," Ron's voice sounded off from across the court. "I got him! For once I beat the bad guy by myself."

Kim walked over to where she had spotted the light switches earlier and turned them on. All the courts were bathed in massive floodlights, and things were much clearer. Across the courts, near the other exit, Kim could see Ron grasping their quarry firmly by the shoulders.

"I'm not sure a ten year old counts as a 'bad guy', Ron," Kim said, walking up to them. She crouched down to speak face-to-face with Samuel Orville Rich, her babysitting job for the evening.

"You sure have been a bad boy, though. What are your parents going to say when they come home and I tell them about how you wouldn't play nice, wouldn't eat your dinner-"

"And sprayed Kim with ketchup when she tried to cut your burger for you!" Ron interjected.

"Yes, and sprayed me with ketchup," said Kim, rubbing the stain on her shirt. "Thanks Ron, I had almost managed to forget that. And then to top it all off, not only would you not take your bath and go to bed, but you made us chase you out to your parents' tennis courts, where you covered all their tennis balls in… fertilizer."

Little S.O. Rich screwed up his face in defiance. "Probably the same thing they said when I did it to all the other babysitters. Why else do you think they had to go to you and your stupid website? I hate it when they go out! I wasn't even able to do nearly as much with you as I am to their normal sitters."

As he said this last, there was a sneaking note of admiration in S.O.'s voice.

Kim caught the signal and decided to work with it. "Well, I seem to recall _someone_ yelling that all I had to do was catch him and he'd go along quietly. Are you still going to keep up your end up the deal?"

S.O. looked downward and muttered, "I suppose. Maybe you could tell me a story before I go to sleep?"

Kim let some of the sternness fade from her face as she signaled Ron to release the ten-year-old. "I don't see why not," she said, ruffling S.O.'s head of short blonde hair.

* * *

At school the next day, Ron and Kim sat down at their usual lunchroom table, trays filled with an unidentifiable blue goop. Kim poked at her goop with a fork, but she there was something about the way she did that said her mind was somewhere else. There was also a vague frown on her face. 

"Last night wasn't exactly our normal kind of mission, was it?" said Ron, trying to get her talking.

"No, I think dealing with Duff Killigan would have been a lot easier," replied Kim. After checking that no one was looking, she furtively sniffed her hand, trying to make sure that washing it ten times had really gotten off all the 'fertilizer' smell.

Ron tapped his index fingers together. "There were some similarities. But hey, one good thing about a babysitting job compared to the normal stuff- we got paid!" By way of demonstration, Ron pulled a green bill out of his wallet and waved it at Kim.

"Want to come down to Smarty Mart after school and help me remind them why I'm their best customer?"

"Neh," was the response he got back from Kim.

Ron decided to try again. "All right, we can go to Club Banana then, and I can help you shop for your fancy 'name brand' clothes."

Even Ron's sneer at 'name brand' failed to elicit a reaction from Kim, as she responded with another sluggish, "Neh."

"Kim, you've been asking depressed all day! What's the matter? Is there anything I can do, because you know you just have to say the word." Ron used his most earnest tone.

Kim perked up and looked her best friend in the eye, touched. She hadn't been looking for sympathy, but the reminder that Ron always had her back served to cheer her nonetheless. She gave one of her patented Kim Possible smiles, that never failed to brighten up a room. "No big, Ron. I mean that. I'm just bummed that cheerleading is over for the next couple of months."

"Yeah, I know the squad's on its annual break now that football season is over," confirmed Ron. "But you'll have the chance to cheer again after the holidays, same as last year."

"That's true, but for some reason I'm missing it more this year. I really love cheering. You know, stretching my body, the competition against other squads, the teamwork- well, most of the team. It's almost like when you and I are on missions, but in some ways it's better because there's nothing at stake but the cheering. No worries, you know?"

Ron nodded back in response. "And getting the crowd to support the home team, right? That's what it's all about for me when I'm the Mad Dog of Middleton High. Feeling that school spirit." He made a couple of vague mascot-like hand gestures to support his position.

To Ron' surprise, Kim's agreement wasn't very enthusiastic. "I suppose that's part of it…. Really Ron, most of the time I try not to let myself get distracted by what's going out on the field. I mean, I want our team to win, but I'm sort of concentrating a lot more on how my squad is doing. That's why I have just as much fun in practices as I do when we're cheering a game."

Kim followed this up by taking a bite of her cafeteria food, halting conversation for a few minutes while she struggled valiantly to choke the meal down. During this time, Ron was uncharacteristically quiet, thinking about how to make Kim feel better.

As Kim arrived on the home stretch of her meal, Ron suddenly spoke. "Excuse KP, there's something on the bulletin board I need to have a look at. I'll be back in a sec."

Hopping out of his seat, Ron walked over to the cafeteria message board, where school-approved notices could be posted for the Middleton students to read. It almost seemed primitive in today's world where kids were more likely to see 'message board' as something on a computer screen, but paper notices and thumbtacks still had their place. He tapped his notice, posted that a couple of days ago, 'Petition for Bueno Nacho lunch Wednesdays'. It had taken some time to persuade the school administration to let him put it up, but there were already something like a hundred signatures. Not bad.

That wasn't what he had come up here to check, however. There was a stack of something like a dozen of the flyers he was interested in, with perforated edges inviting interested parties to take one. After studying the flyer to make sure what it was what he had remembered, Ron neatly ripped off the top one and folded it up.

Back at the table, he found Kim sipping the last of her drink. "Hey Kim."

When she looked up, Ron opened up the flap of his pants pocket and pulled out Rufus. He extended the palm of his hand out towards Kim with Rufus standing on it, and with Rufus holding the folded-up flyer out towards Kim. "I've got something for you."

The naked mole rat turned and chattered something indignant back at Ron. "Sorry, I mean that Rufus and I have something for you."

Looking curious, Kim took the flyer and unfolded it to read. "Middleton Teen Girls Tennis Team tryouts?"

Ron nodded enthusiastically as he set Rufus down on the table. "It's the perfect thing to take the cheer squad-shaped hole in your schedule! Try-outs are this Saturday, and then it's a super-short season. Just four weeks long and then there's an all-day tournament against the Upperton team."

"So this is… a _competitive_ sports team, right?" Kim answered. There was something strange about her reaction.

"Of course," replied Ron, pushing ahead. "You said what you loved about cheerleading is the competition and athletics stuff, right? The way I figure it, that means what you're really looking for is a sport to play."

Ron stopped speaking and looked off vaguely, as if realizing what he just said. "Actually, why don't you already play sports, KP? I know you'd be great at them, and your natural 'Kimpetitive' spirit is… kind of scary. I mean, there are girls teams here at school, or heck, you could probably embarrass most of the guys on the football team at their own game."

"Cheerleading is a sport!" Kim replied firmly. Then she ruined the effect by shifting her gaze so she wasn't looking Ron in the eye and muttering, "Sort of…."

Avoiding the question any further, Kim picked up the flyer and read the rest of it. "It says that with only a month to do training, they're picking girls who are already good tennis players and just giving them a little polish on their skills. Ron, I haven't actually played all that much tennis."

Ron laughed. "Oh come on Kim, I haven't forgotten what I saw you do last night. You're all about the tennis moves."

"Well…."

"I mean, what about the way you hit all the loose balls into a ball pyramid stack for storage? You didn't even use a bucket or anything or pick them up. Just Kim's skills with the racquet." Ron made a few whooshing 'skill' noises.

"No big," replied Kim uncomfortably. "They were sticky, so it wasn't as hard. I'm still not sure about this."

Kim considered for a few moments while Ron waited, the expression on her face indicating she was putting some serious thought into something. Finally she said, "You know what Ron? You're right, I think I would like to play some tennis. Competitively. I'm old enough that I can make my own decisions now, and I don't have to listen to- to anyone else!"

With that, she got up to take her tray to the trash. "Thanks Ron," said Kim, briefly touching his sleeve before she walked away.

Left behind, Ron and Rufus looked at each other puzzled. "Yeah, I think it got a little weird at the end there too, buddy. Make her own decisions? What does she mean by that?" said Ron.

* * *

Kim held a Club Banana tennis skirt against herself, trying to envision how it would look if she were wearing it.

"Hey girl, great minds think alike!"

Kim turned to find Monique holding her own copy of the tennis skirt. "Monique," replied Kim in a friendly tone of voice.

"So you thinking about a new look?" said Monique.

"Not so much a new look as I need something to play tennis in," replied Kim. "I'm going to try out for the Middleton Teen Girls Tennis Team."

"You too? All right!" Monique pumped a fist for emphasis.

"Monique, you're trying out for the team?"

Monique help up a warning finger. "Correction. I am going to be on the team. Second year running. There is no 'try'. I've been playing tennis since I was six years old, and with all that practice I have got it _down_. I had no idea you played too. You should have said something. We could have had a friendly match or two."

Kim turned slightly red. " I haven't actually played- Well, I've never played a game of tennis. Or had any lessons. Actually…" Kim kicked a shopping bag that she had laid down near her feet. Out of it was sticking the handle of a new tennis racquet.

"Actually, I really came out to the mall to buy a tennis racquet. I just thought I'd visit Club Banana and get a tennis dress while I'm here."

A concerned look crossed Monique's face. "Kim… you realize those try-outs aren't for beginners. I mean, I know you're athletic and all, but maybe you should leave this to the experienced players. I wouldn't want you to embarrass yourself."

A stubborn look settled on Kim's face. "What, scared of the competition? Don't worry about me, I pick up this sort of thing pretty quick."

Monique didn't seem to take real offense, but she shook her head. "Hey, if you want to try out, that's fine. I'm just saying don't be disappointed if you don't make the cut. Crazy saving-the-world martial arts are your thing, but tennis is my thing. Back flips won't help you out on the court."

Kim shrugged, but something about the set of her face suggested a sudden strong desire to prove Monique wrong. "We'll see, Monique. We'll see."

* * *

Author's Notes:

I haven't yet seen all the episodes of Kim Possible, so I hope there's nothing contradicting the idea that Kim doesn't play competitive sports regularly. Because that's kind of the central thing I'm hanging this story on, along with the revelation of why she doesn't play sports. I understand there's a late third season episode where she does the X-Games, but that seems to be mission-related and so doesn't count.

Where is this going? Well, you'll have to wait and see. Hopefully by the end, readers will have gained a different view of some things about Kim Possible that I hope fits with everything we know about her from the cartoon. Please Read and Review, as the mantra goes.


	2. Chapter 2

It was mid-morning, but the Upperton Public Tennis Courts were still in shadow. This was due to the high-rise buildings on all sides blocking out the sun. The courts were typical of Upperton, dark and cramped, and not a lot of tennis got played there considering how many people lived in the area.

This latter fact was, in a round-about way, the source of Coach Thomas Rakket's current frustration.

"So I take it that everyone else is… on their way?" he suggested with the air of a man who knows he's doomed to disappointment.

Facing Coach Rakket were ten teenage girls. Ten to fill a team of… a team of ten, in fact. About half of them looked distinctly unenthusiastic about being there, though he spotted a short blonde and a slightly chubby brunette who looked at least interested in what was going on. Three of them weren't even carrying tennis racquets.

Not that Coach Rakket cut a particularly impressive figure in the eyes of the girls. He was a slight man, only a few inches over five feet and with a scarecrow-like build that left his blue track jacket hanging off his shoulders in a rather sad fashion. He had a few wispy red-brown strands of hair coming out of his chin in what seemed to be some attempt at a beard, though the hair on top of his head was reasonably thick. Robin, for this was the name of the short blonde teenager, thought he looked to be in his late thirties.

"Um, I don't think so sir," said Robin after a moment, when she realized no one else was going to speak up. "It's ten minutes after the hour, and I don't see anyone else in the parking lot."

Rakket seemed to glower angrily at the girls for a moment, but he quickly turned his face away and forced a smile. "That's all right," he told Robin. "We need ten girls for the team and there are ten of you, so I think everything's going to work out just fine."

Pacing back and forth for a moment, Racquet addressed his potential team as a whole. "For those of you who don't know- and I don't see any returning team members here, I am Coach Thomas Rakket. I've coached the Upperton Teen Girls Tennis Team for the past three years. For the past three years Middleton has beaten us, but I want you to know that this year will be different!"

He followed this statement up with an evil little chuckle that threatened to turn into a full-blown villainous laugh. To cut it off, he deliberately turned it into a cough.

"I have a very special training regimen planned that will- yes?" Rakket interrupted himself in response to the brunette raising her hand.

"I'm just here to see Robin try out. I wasn't actually interested in playing," she replied.

"What! That will ruin- I mean, are you sure you wouldn't like to try it just for today? You can always go home if you don't like it." Rakket forced another smile.

The brunette gave a sort of noncommittal shrug that Rakket chose to interpret as assent.

"Well then… I suppose all of you automatically make the team. Now I want all of you to drink the water I brought. It's important to stay hydrated when you're out on the courts. While you're doing that, I'm going to get out our _very special_ new team racquets, which are being provided at no cost to you." Coach Rakket pointed towards a box holding bottles of water that was sitting against one of the back walls, indicating the girls should grab their water from there.

Coach Rakket walked out to the parking lot and opened the trunk of his car. With two grunts of effort, he first pulled out a small wagon and then a medium-sized crate to set on the wagon so that he could easily move it about.

The crate appeared to be unopened. There was a small address label on one side and a large stylized "D" on the top, but otherwise there was no indication of its contents. Pulling out a crowbar, Rakket tugged on one side until it came loose, revealing the interior. Inside were ten tennis racquets, neatly displayed in a metal frame holder that offered their handles for easy access. Rakket reached in as if to grab one, then seemed to realize what he was doing and quickly pulled his hand away.

Tugging the wagon behind him, Coach Rakket walked back into the courts where the Upperton team awaited him. "Everyone line up and take one racquet each. Don't worry, they're all the same," he told the girls.

One by one, the racquets were removed from their crate for examination by their new owners. There was something sophisticated and high-tech looking about the racquets. The metal of the frames was shimmering and reflective, like something that should be on a rocket ship, and there were strange bumps and protrusions all along the rim. Each racquet was already strung with golden-colored string that seemed to pulse and vibrate as though containing some unknown power.

The court grew completely silent as each member of the team grasped her racquet in her hands and stared at the strings, mesmerized. Coach Rakket watched this, rubbing his hands together in glee. After checking his watch every few seconds as if waiting some prearranged amount of time, he finally spoke.

"Now team, tell me how you feel about getting in some tennis practice," Coach Rakket commanded.

"We will become unbeatable!" said the brunette in a strange monotone.

"Nothing will stop us," added Robin the same blank tone.

"Together we will crush Middleton," said the whole team in unison. "Victory at all costs!"

Coach Rakket clapped his hands together in glee and let off a full-fledged villainous laugh.

* * *

"Major crowd," Kim said to Ron. 

"You said it. There's got to be sixty girls here trying out, and that's not counting parents," Ron replied.

The two of them had just arrived at the Middleton courts. Kim was wearing a Club Banana tennis outfit and carrying her new racquet in one hand.

Kim looked around. "Ron, do you see any kind of registration table? Ron? Ron!" She thwacked her friend in his right arm, disrupting his fixation on a statuesque blonde in a particularly short tennis dress.

"Ow! Hey-" Ron wilted before Kim's glare. "Sorry, but there's a whole new crowd of girls here who've never met the Ronster. I just have to figure out how to let them know what they're missing."

"Got to admire your optimism, Ron," muttered Kim. "Oh, there it is."

Spotting a small sign labeled 'sign-up' with a clipboard underneath it, Kim walked over and picked up the clipboard. Using the attached pen, Kim wrote her name on the sign-in sheet. She was just wondering where to go next when a familiar voice sounded from behind her.

"Kim Possible? You're trying out for the team?" It was Mr. Barkin.

Before Kim could respond, Ron spoke up. "Absolutely, Mr. B. Kim here is going to bring home the gold for Middleton Tennis."

"Well, I'm going to try my best," said Kim with a modest head-flip. "What are you doing here, Mr. Barkin?"

"I'm the one coaching this team," Barkin replied.

"You!" said Kim and Ron simultaneously.

"Since when do you coach tennis?" asked Kim.

"I'm doing it as a community service. Part of my mandatory community service. I- Look, I don't want to go into it. Possible, we'll see if you're any good. As for you Stoppable-" Barkin glared at Ron. "You do realize that this try-out is for a _girls'_ team?"

"I'm just here to give Kim moral support and watch the show," Ron assured Barkin.

"Fine." Barkin reached out and took the clipboard from Kim. He then walked out onto the courts and called for all the applicants to line up in rows on the serving line. Kim found a place in the second row, while Ron moved off to the sidelines with the other well-wishers.

Just before Barkin began to speak, Monique slipped into place beside Kim and gave her friend a nod.

"All right, just in case anyone is in the wrong place, these try-outs are for the Middleton Teen Girls Tennis Team, and I am Coach Steve Barkin. It's an annual tradition to send Middleton's ten best players up against Upperton's ten best. It's also a tradition for Middleton to take home the trophy. Today I'm going to put you through a series of drills to determine who the best players to uphold these traditions are. Now-"

As Barkin droned on, Monique whispered to Kim. "So you showed up after all?"

"I said I would, didn't I? Why would you think I wouldn't?" Kim snapped back.

"Cool down, girl. No reason to get excited. I hope we do both make the team."

Monique's calmness diffused Kim's temper a little. "You're right. So who do you think our biggest competition is?"

"Last year, I was on the team with-"

Barkin's voice, now much closer, suddenly cut across what Monique was saying. "Since the two of you aren't interested in what I have to say to the group, I guess that means you're volunteering for spots number 1 and 2 in the drills."

He had noticed the two talking and walked over to their position in the line. Barkin pointed at Monique when he said 'number 1' and Kim when he said 'number 2'. Caught, they couldn't do anything but nod and agree.

The first exercise was simple. Serve three balls to the opposite side of the court. Monique went first, and proved to be every bit as good as she had claimed to Kim. She even had a special serving technique involving spinning her body as she jumped up to meet the ball so that she could make it tough for her opponent on the receiving end to tell which way the ball would spin.

Coming up immediately after, Kim had only a second to decide how to handle the serve. With Monique's example fresh in her mind, she settled on duplicating what Monique had done precisely, including the other girl's signature spin. A snort of indignation from Monique's direction greeted this performance, though everyone else seemed impressed.

The next few tests were much the same, with Kim perfectly mirroring what Monique had done only moments before. As the day wore on, however, and Barkin started eliminating girls, Kim grew more comfortable with the basic moves and began branching out more, making use of her acrobatic abilities to jump aggressively for the ball. It became clear to everyone that Monique and Kim were the two best players on the court, and most of the other players assumed that Kim and Monique had been practicing together a long time, given how similar their playing styles were.

Monique, of course, knew differently.

"You have some nerve asking me which side of the court I want, after you've been stealing my moves all day!" she said to Kim. Barkin had ordered Kim and Monique to play doubles together so that the remaining girls could take turns playing in pairs against them, and Kim had just asked which side of the court Monique wanted.

"I haven't watched a lot of tennis, so I watched you to figure out what to do. What's wrong with that?" answered Kim.

"What's _wrong_ is that I worked a year on that spin serve, and then you go and upstage me like it was nothing," said Monique, her usual cool gone. "I'll take the left side of the field and you take the right, and let's just not get in each others' way."

The opposing pair managed to return Monique's first serve. It landed in the right side, just inside the doubles line. Kim just stood there, allowing it to bounce away.

"Kim!" Monique yelled. "Why did you let that go?"

A blush began to appear on Kim's face. "Wait, was that in? It didn't count as in before."

"We weren't playing doubles before." Monique sighed and added, "I guess you really haven't played much. Come on, we can do this."

Together the two of them easily defeated the pair they were facing and then the next pair. On the third game, something happened to break their rhythm. Moving to return a tricky volley, Monique overextended herself and ended up sprawled on the ground. Even though she had managed the return, she wasn't going to be able to get up in time if the other team managed a volley.

Seeing the situation, Kim moved in from the other side of the court even as the other team sent a high lob to the far corner from her. She might have been able to make it on a sprint, but Monique (who was getting to her feet) was directly in Kim's path. Instead, Kim opted for a back flip over Monique, intercepting the ball in mid-air and smashing it over the net to score the game-winning point. She landed neatly on her feet.

Everyone watching erupted into spontaneous applause. Except for Monique.

* * *

Monique and Kim stood a few feet apart, their backs to each other as Coach Barkin made the official team roster announcement. The coolness in the air was most definitely not due to the season. Suddenly, Ron popped up behind them, reaching out with his arms to pull both of them into a hug. 

"Can you believe it? The three amigos all made the team! The next few weeks are going to be great. We'll be heading to Bueno Nacho after every practice for celebratory nacos."

Ron's enthusiasm was infectious, but after a moment Kim processed what he had just said. With a quizzical look on her face, she asked, "Ron… How exactly did you make a girls' tennis team? Considering, and I have to stress this, that you are not a girl and you didn't try out."

Ron pointed both thumbs at himself. "You are looking at the new official team ball boy. After seeing what a great job Rufus and I did keeping the court clean during try-outs, Mr. Barkin said he'd be happy to have me keeping up the good work."

By way of demonstration, Rufus skittered up Ron's body clutching a tennis ball. He handed it to Ron, who tossed the ball in a nearby collection bin. Ron and Rufus gave each other the high-five.

Monique spoke up. "I'll have to take a rain check on Bueno Nacho today, Ron. We'll catch it next time."

She walked away, moving past Kim with only a cold, "Kim," as an acknowledgement.

Kim returned an equally cold, "Monique."

Ron watched her walk away and turned to his best friend. "Uh, Kim?"

"So not the drama, Ron."

"…got it. So are your parents going to pick us up? I'm a little surprised they aren't here, what with your big debut. I guess they have pretty busy schedules, though."

"Yeah, they couldn't make it. I'm just going to walk back," said Kim, not quite looking Ron in the eyes.

"That's okay; I don't mind exercising my legs a little more today. I can be the one to tell your Mom and Dad how much butt you kicked, so it doesn't seem too braggy."

Ron, I-"

Ron was smiling innocently.

Kim sighed. "Sure, that's fine."

They walked back together, engaging in their usual banter. As they came to Kim's driveway, however, Kim stopped to pull out her Kimmunicator out of her bag.

"Wade," she said, pressing the transmit button.

There was a flicker, and the young genius's image appeared on the small screen. "Kim, congrats on making the tennis team."

"Does everybody know?" said Kim, voice a little quivery.

"I keep track of what's going on with you, Kim," said Wade in a self-satisfied tone. "So what's up?"

"I was just wondering if there were any hits on the website. You know, typhoon, floods, fires, supervillains. Anything that needs to be taken care of like- right now?"

On the screen, Wade frowned. "Kim, you know I always tell you when something comes up, when you need to know it. I thought we'd got past the days of you checking up on me a long time ago."

"Wade, that's not what I-"

Wade tapped his keyboard a bit. "Actually, there's a couple of things that might turn into missions, but neither of them are going to pan out for at least 24 hours. Did you want me to give you an update?"

"No Wade, that's all right. I need to get going now."

"Okay, Kim. Congrats again on making the team." Wade's image disappeared.

Kim shrugged to Ron and walked up the drive to her house, Ron just a few steps behind her.

Inside, Kim's mother was sitting on the couch working on her laptop. She looked up as Kim and Ron entered. "Hi kids, what have you been up to?"

"Just playing a little tennis, Mom," said Kim with a false casualness.

"Don't listen to K.P. trying to be modest, Mrs. Dr. Possible," crowed Ron. "She totally made the tennis team. She and Monique were the best players on the court, and everybody knew it."

Kim's mother looked surprised for just a moment, then she narrowed her gaze and looked directly at her daughter. Kim met her mother's gaze, and for a long moment they had a staredown. Finally, Mrs. Possible said, "So you're playing competitively now, Kim. You didn't mention this before."

In a carefully controlled voice, Kim answered, "I didn't want to say anything until I found out if I made the team."

"Now Kimmie, I don't think there was much doubt about that once you decided to try."

Kim broke the stare-off, tossing her arms out to the side. "Mom, it's no big. It's just a stupid city team. We're only going to play one tournament, against Upperton. It's a Middleton tradition. Just something to keep me in shape until Cheer Squad starts up again."

Mrs. Possible continued looking at her daughter for a moment, then sighed and closed her laptop. "Well, that's your decision, honey. Let me just go find your father, and-"

"That's right, it's my decision!" interrupted Kim, in a voice that said she was prepared for a fight. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go up to my room and change."

With that, Kim stormed past her mother and up the stairs to her room. Her mother just stood watching her calmly. Once Kim completely left the room, Mrs. Possible turned her gaze to Ron and seemed about to say something.

Ron could sometimes be unperceptive, but he wasn't _that_ unperceptive. He quickly spoke. "You know what, Mrs. Dr. P, I need to get going. Uhh… Rufus is, uh, Rufus isn't feeling well."

On Ron's shoulder, Rufus quickly took his cue and began lolling around and moaning.

"Of course, Ron. I hope he's feeling better," said Mrs. Possible, with a slight smile on her face that said she wasn't fooled in the slightest.

Ron turned to go. Before he had taken two steps, however, Mrs. Possible's voice called out from behind him.

"Ron?"

He half turned.

"Did Kim- Did she have fun, Ron?"

Ron looked to Rufus for guidance. The naked mole rat nodded vigorously and said, "Yayayaya."

Ron nodded to Kim's mother. "Yeah, she had a great time, Mrs. Dr. Possible."

"Good."

Kim's mother didn't say anything else as Ron walked out and carefully closed the door behind him. He drew one hand across his brow and wiped off a scattering of sweat drops.

"Whew, what was all that about?" he asked Rufus.

The mole rat just shrugged in response.

"We need to talk to Kim." Moving in exaggerated sneaking motions, Ron walked around the side of the Possible house until he was looking up at Kim's window. He put one hand on the siding to start climbing, then pulled it back.

'I'm going to go up to my room and change,' Kim had said.

"Yeah, maybe we shouldn't surprise her up there," Ron told his mole rat. He patted his pockets. "I think I forgot my cell phone, and I don't have my own Kimmunicator-"

Ron stamped his foot in frustration. "Why don't I have my own Kimmunicator, Rufus? Am I not part of Team Possible? Do I not need to talk to Wade just as much as Kim does?"

"Yayayaya," said Rufus, supporting Ron.

"Okay, not solving the problem." Ron paced back and forth for a second. "I know! I'll throw some pebbles at her window. She'll hear and look out and see me and give me the wave to come up. Go find me some rocks, Rufus."

Ron set Rufus on the ground. The mole rat ran around for a minute, gathering up a collection of rocks for Ron's consideration.

Ron picked up the first one. "A little too small. She's not even going to hear this." He picked up the next one and considered it. "Way too heavy. This might break the window, and that's going nowhere good. I don't think-"

From around the front of the house, there came the sound of the front door opening. Ron froze.

"Dear, we both knew this day would come." It was Mr. Dr. Possible's voice.

"Well, last time Kimmie and I talked about it, I did tell her that she was growing up now and it was her decision. I just didn't expect her to decide to try it, after all this time." It was Mrs. Dr. Possible voice.

They didn't seem to be moving from the front step. Apparently, they had just decided to talk in the open air, possibly to be away from the ears of Kim's brothers. Ron froze, not sure he should be eavesdropping but not wanting to interrupt.

"Well, things are different now," said Mr. Dr. Possible. "The reasons we had keeping Kim out of competitive sports don't really apply as much. There's kids her age who have practiced for years."

"We? You're being kind, James. I know you never really agreed with my reasons."

"Nonsense," said Mr. Dr. Possible, not sounding entirely convincing. "We parent as a team, and I take my full share of responsibility." There was a pause, and then he spoke in a more upbeat tone. "Besides, it's not so bad, is it? Kim's going off to college in a couple of years, and an athletic scholarship-"

"We can afford to send our daughter to college!" snapped Mr. Dr. Possible.

"Of course, I was just trying to look on the bright side." Mr. Dr. Possible hastily backpedaled.

"It's just, she seemed so angry, James. I never realized that it upset her so much. Do you think- Do you think she resents me?"

There was another pause. "Probably a little. What teenage girl doesn't resent her mother a little? But she knows you were only trying to do what was best for her, and she loves you."

"I suppose."

There was a long pause, and finally the sound of the front door opening and closing.

Ron and Rufus sat staring at each other, mouths hung open in astonishment.

* * *

Author's Notes: 

At this point, things should be fairly obvious. But if like Ron you are still confused, everything will be explained in time. I'm estimating about 5 chapters for this fic.

Thanks to lab1152, Corencio, kemitzri, Triaxx2, Pesterfield, and Jezrianna2.0 for their reviews. This is my first fanfic in a very long time, and knowing that people are reading has been a huge inspiration to continue. Please keep it up, even if it's only a sentence to say you read the latest chapter. In answer to your comments, I have seen the Coach Possible episode and it was a big inspiration for this fic, in more ways than just the obvious. But I'll save a substantial discussion for where this fic came from until a little later on.

Style-wise, I'm trying very hard to give no more and no less information on what the characters are thinking than you would get if they were animated. Sometimes I'll tell you what's going on in a character's head, but that's usually as a substitute for you being able to see their facial expressions and body language. Is it working?

Ron is a lot of fun to write, and Rufus is a handy device for an author. With Rufus, Ron always has someone to talk to, so I don't have to have him do soliloquies to explain what's going on.

The character I'm having the most trouble with is Monique. She obviously has a fairly important part to play, but I'm having trouble capturing the essence of her character, probably because I've seen so few episodes with her in it. E-mailed advice or tips for good Monique stories to read for inspiration would be helpful.

That's all for now. I'll work on the fic during the week, but chapter 3 promises to be a bit tricky, as I have to move all the pieces into place and I'm not quite sure who should be in an important scene. You'll see it by the end of next weekend, at the latest.


	3. Chapter 3

The small plane dipped and tumbled as it flew through the storm clouds. Visibility was limited to a few feet, forcing the pilot to fly by instrumentation. The roar of air past the open cargo bay drowned out nearly all sound, except for the booms of thunder from the near-continuous lightning strikes between the surrounding clouds.

Kim Possible stood in the open hatchway, ready to jump.

With one hand she gripped a hand-hold attached to a small cargo crate. She was using her other hand to wave back to the pilot. Because of the noise, there was no way to properly thank him for the ride, so she settled for mouthing the words and giving him a goodbye gesture.

Ron was on the other side of the crate, gripping a second hand-hold. By leaning over until her mouth was only inches from his ear, Kim was able to make herself understood.

"You ready, Ron?" she yelled.

Ron shouted something unintelligible back, but the important part was that he nodded his head in the affirmative.

Without waiting for anything else, Kim jumped from the plane. Her weight dragged the cargo crate off behind her, and the combined weight pulled Ron off too. In an instant, they were in freefall. Kim and Ron were wearing wetsuits, and the skin-tight garments served almost as well as conventional skydiving clothing for cutting down on wind resistance.

Kim waited until they had dropped clear of the upper layer of clouds, and then triggered the chute on the cargo crate. It nearly instantly disappeared upwards, as Team Possible continued their freefall. They fell until they saw the open ocean spreading out below them, and Ron triggered his parachute. Kim delayed a couple of seconds to ensure that she would hit the water before Ron, then followed suit.

Just before she touched down upon, Kim triggered the releases on her chute and dived cleanly into the salt water. She swam a few quick strokes back to the surface and pulled a packet out of her equipment pouch. Triggered, it expanded into a small rubber raft. Kim got on board, then quickly assembled a small paddle and began paddling out to Ron, who had landed by this time.

Ron Stoppable was tangled up underneath his parachute, unable to see as it covered his head each time he rose above the surface of the water to breath. Kim used her paddle to snag the chute and flip it to the side, uncovering Ron.

"Fine, I'm just fine," Ron said as he scrambled into the raft. Kim hadn't asked, but he could have been reassuring himself.

"Not the most fun jump ever," Kim said. "Do you see the engine parts? This mission is going to be a bust without them."

"Right over there," said Ron. He pointed out the crate, which had almost reached the ocean's surface.

Kim pulled out her Kimmunicator and aimed it at the crate. She pushed a button, and small water wings inflated from the sides of the container as it hit, allowing it to float neatly on the surface of the ocean. She made a pleased sound and smiled.

"You seem pretty happy," offered Ron cautiously. He had broken out his own paddle, and both he and Kim were maneuvering to the floating container. The water was a bit choppy, but the storm above hadn't yet made the waves unnavigable.

"We're on a mission and things are going according to plan. I'd say I'm definitely on the right side of satisfied. Dancing the jig of joy. Cooking the cake of content. And maybe, just maybe, hiking the hill of happy." Kim's tone was teasing, and she alternated her words with paddle strokes.

With Ron reaching out to steady the crate, Kim carefully opened it and pulled out a small motor. She attached the motor to the side of her raft, and suddenly they were no longer depending on muscle power. The crate was tugged along behind them, trailing via a rope.

Ron collapsed back into the raft, rubbing his forearms. "Good to hear it," he said, continuing their conversation. Speaking in a rushed and anxious tone, he said, "Kim, there's something I wanted to ask you abou-"

Kim's Kimmunicator went off, interrupting with its distinctive beeps.

"Hold that thought," Kim told her sidekick. She flipped on the Kimmunicator's screen. "Wade, what's the sitch?"

The young genius's image was lined with static and his voice was crackly and hard to understand. "I've loca- pop the ship. The Kimmuni- snap take you there. Sorry about the static, the storm is- crackle-crackle -transmitting instructions into memory."

"I've got it Wade. I'll try to call you again once we're on board." Kim shut the Kimmunicator's screen off.

Ron had just enough time to open his mouth to speak when Kim suddenly offered him the Kimmunicator. "Ron, can you navigate? These waves are getting a little tricky, and I want to concentrate on driving."

There was nothing for Ron to say but, "No problem, KP." He reached out to take the Kimmunicator. It was slick in his hands from the salt water, and he pulled it back a little too fast. It popped out of his hands and arced over the side of the boat towards the ocean.

Ron fumbled to try to grab it, but he already knew he'd be too late. Just before the Kimmunicator hit water, however, Kim caught it in her right hand. Her arm moved so fast, Ron could barely make it out. They just stared at each other for a moment, and Ron suddenly looked very uncertain. He seemed to shrink in on himself a little.

Kim just smiled at Ron and extended the Kimmunicator out to him again, like nothing had happened. He took it from her, much more carefully this time, and activated the tracking function. Kim's confidence in him seemed to have restored his confidence in himself.

"Okay… no, no, there! The University's Pride should be over there," Ron said after a moment. He point in what he thought was the proper direction and struggled to see through the rain. Visibility was getting worse.

"I see it," Kim replied. A ship appeared up ahead. It was about thirty meters long, and the name 'University's Pride' was neatly written on the side.

Once Kim had pulled the raft up along-side the ship, she used a grapple to snag the railing and climb the side. Ron followed her up and together, with much heaving and straining, they drew the crate up after them. The ship was silent and empty, and no one came on deck to greet them.

Ron rubbed his arms again. They had been getting more of a workout than usual during the mission. He said to Kim, "Remind me again of why we're here for a ship that doesn't have any people on it?"

Kim was searching around, looking for a hatch that led downstairs. "Did you not listen when Wade was briefing us?"

"Of course I was listening! Kind of. I might have been a little distracted. Well, I remembered we were looking for a ship," Ron admitted in order.

"Ship carrying valuable archeological artifacts. Ship has engine trouble, and they don't have the parts to fix it. Big, big storm coming. Ship gets evacuated, but there's no room for the artifacts. Team Possible shows up to fix engines and get ship out of there before the storm sinks it," said Kim, summarizing in short.

"So there's no villains involved in this one," said Ron.

"Not unless you count Mother Nature," answered Kim.

While they were talking, Kim had found the hatchway leading down to the engine room and they had dragged the box of engine parts down to it. She flipped open her Kimmunicator. "Walk me through fixing the engines, Wade."

Static was the only response.

"Uh-oh, said Ron.

"No, it's no big. We expected this," answered Kim. She punched a few buttons on her Kimmunicator, and an alternating set of schematics and instructions appeared on the screen. "Wade downloaded everything we need to tell us how to fix the ship."

As she spoke, there was a wriggle from Ron's belt as Rufus pushed open his special carry pouch. He hopped out onto the floor and yawned.

"Oh, now that we're finally out of the rain, you show up," Ron said.

"Yep-yep-yep," was the mole rat's response.

Together, the three of them started working on the engines, following Wade's instructions. It wasn't easy going.

Ron fidgeted for a while, trying to get himself back into the talking frame of mind. "Hey Kim," he finally said.

"What, Ron?" said Kim without turning from the engine.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," he said, pushing ahead.

"What, now?" There was a little bit of exasperation in Kim's voice.

"Yes, now. I am definitely not going another now without checking up on my best friend's well-being."

There was a moment's silence and Kim finally looked up. "Wait, there's something wrong with my well-being?"

"I'm talking the tennis team, KP. I overheard your mother talking yesterday. I know she banned you from doing competitive sports. Your mother's a doctor, Kim. I'm pretty sure that counts as going against medical advice."

"Mountain. Molehill," Kim said.

There was a squeal of protest from inside the engine.

Kim winced. "Sorry Rufus! Ron, it's true my Mom didn't want me playing competitive sports when I was younger, but she said I'm old enough now to decide to do it if I want to. So I decided to go for it, and I'm glad I did. The tennis team is fun."

Ron folded his arms and put on his 'no nonsense' expression. "Well if it's so much fun, why did it put you in such a bad mood?"

A slow blush appeared on Kim's cheeks in response. "Have I been grouchy? Okay, don't answer that. I have been, and I apologized to Mom. I guess it's just that doing it even though Mom didn't want me to, it made me feel like I was doing something wrong. And… I got defensive about it and started snapping at people."

"What's your Mom's problem, anyway? You're great at sports, Kim. I don't get why she doesn't want you playing."

"Well that's the-" Kim was interrupted as the ship suddenly listed far to the side, causing their tools to slide across the floor of the cargo hold. Ron was able to catch himself, but Kim was kneeling in front of the engine and couldn't prevent herself from hitting a wall with a painful thud.

"I think we took a little too long." Kim scrambled to her feet, clutching her side. "Rufus, you have those wires together yet?"

In answer, there was a short zapping sound from the engine. Kim flipped a switch, and the ship's motor rumbled to life with an outpouring of black smoke.

"We need to get to the controls," shouted Kim. She ran to the ladder and used one of the rungs as a springboard to jump all the way up to the deck. Outside, the storm had gotten much worse and huge waves were buffeting the ship about.

By the time Ron got to the top of the ladder, Kim was already at the controls, turning the wheel. The ship started to move under its own power, against the waves, and an unsecured pile of chains slid precariously across the deck. Ron managed to duck out of the way just in time.

Unsteadily, Ron was able to make his way over to Kim. She offered him one end of a rope, and he looped it around both of their waists, tying them to the ship's wheel. As he did, Kim was steering the ship over the crest of a huge wave.

"So you were saying?" said Ron, having to raise his voice because of the howling winds.

"You mean about the sports? I have to warn you, this is going to sound kind of arrogant, but it's coming from Mom, not me," Kim answered.

There was a shudder through the ship and Ron was thrown against Kim as they slid down the crest of a huge wave. Kim seemed unconcerned, but Ron covered his eyes with one hand, trying not to look at the seas about them.

"Arrogant, smarogant, braggy, whatever," said Ron. "Just keep talking so I don't have to think about these waves." He pushed himself back from Kim again.

"Well you were saying I'm good at sports. That's the problem; I'm too good at them. Mom thought it would be unfair for me to compete against other kids."

"Uuugghh?" groaned Ron in response.

"Come on, Ron. I learned to play tennis in about five seconds. After a morning playing, I'm as good as Monique. You know how quickly I can get really good at the physical stuff." After that one terrifying slide, they seemed to be moving away from the worst of the waves. Kim let out a small sigh of relief.

"You do learn pretty fast," Ron said. "Would it really have been that bad?"

"You know what I can do almost as well as I do. You remember when I was coaching Jim and Tim's soccer team? What would have happened if Mom and Dad had put me on a soccer team when I was the same age as the tweebs?"

Ron thought for a second. "You would have won every game, every time, all on your own. You know, you're right, this does sound arrogant."

"Told you," said Kim.

"So basically, Mrs. Dr. Possible never let you play competitive sports because there would never have been any competition. And now…" said Ron.

"Well, I can get as good as people who have practiced for a long time, but people who have practiced for a long time can still give me a fight. Little bit of a fight," said Kim with perhaps a trace of smugness.

"It doesn't seem fair," said Ron. "You shouldn't be held back just because you're really good at stuff."

Kim didn't argue with him. She merely said, "My Mom didn't feel that way, I guess."

"Weren't you on the swim team, though?"

"I have to be honest, Ron. More of a swim _club_, really."

Their conversation halted for a long while, until the University's Pride finally got far enough away from the storm to break into sunshine. Kim pulled out her Kimmunicator.

"I'd better call Wade and arrange pick-up and a replacement captain. If we tried to pilot this thing all the way back to port, we'd definitely be late for school."

Before she could activate it, Ron reached out and grabbed her hand. "Hold up Kim, I got a bone to pick here."

Kim looked at him, surprised. "What's wrong now?"

"I've been your best friend since pre-K. How come you never told me about this no-sports thing before now? How could you keep this a secret? Cold Kim, real cold. I thought we told each other everything." Ron gave her his best judgmental look.

Kim's cheeks colored a little, but then a thoughtful expression crossed her face. "You know, it seems like I would have told you about this- Hey, I did tell you about this! I told you the whole thing. You forgot. You completely forgot!"

"Nice try Kim, but I don't think so."

"Oh yes I did!"

"Oh no you didn't!"

They glared at each other. Finally, Ron asked, "So when? When did you tell me?"

Kim was at a loss for half a second, but then she recovered her certainty. "We were eight years old. You wanted us to join a softball team, and I told you I couldn't. I told you my Mom thought I'd be too good at sports, so she wouldn't let me play. And you said that if I couldn't play you didn't want to play, so you didn't join the team."

Ron pointed an accusatory finger. "That's-" He paused, seeming to remember something. "I didn't think-" He paused again, and then laughed nervously. "Maybe you did mention it. In passing."

Kim crossed her arms, not letting Ron off the hook. "Who's the cold one now, huh? I told you this big thing, and you couldn't even remember."

"Kim… we were eight. Do you realize how many conversations we've had since we were eight? How much I know about you? This brain is not that big, Kim." Ron tapped his head. "It holds a limited amount of information."

His best friend continued looking at him in an unforgiving fashion.

He gave her a grin. "You're not going to hold it against me, are you?"

Kim sighed and gave a flip of her hair and a roll of her eyes in answer. She pulled out her Kimmunicator and turned it on.

"Need a pick-up, Wade. Please and thank you."

* * *

A couple of weeks later on the Middleton tennis courts, practice was in session. The ten girls of the team were running laps around the court, many of them gasping for breath. It was hard to complain though, since Mr. Barkin was pacing them the whole way, seemingly not having any trouble keeping up.

Kim jogged up next to him. "Say Coach Barkin, I've been thinking," she said, apparently having plenty of breath left to speak.

There were several groans from the girls behind her.

"What have you been thinking, Possible?" said Mr. Barkin with a combination of interest and wariness.

"Well, these laps are great and all, but is there any reason we can't be working on our racquet control while we're running? We could each try to keep a ball dribbling while we run. It'll be fun!"

To demonstrate, Kim picked up her speed a bit, running ahead of the group to snatch her racquet from the ground. "Ron, ball," she yelled.

Ron, who had been comfortably sitting with his back up against one of the court walls, obediently tossed a tennis ball towards her. Kim began bouncing it against the court with her racquet, keeping it easily under control as she allowed Barkin and the rest to catch up with her.

"Well…." said Barkin, apparently considering it.

There was another, louder, set of groans from the girls behind Kim. From most of them, that is.

"If Kim's up for it, I'm up for it!" declared Monique. The other girls all shot her a dirty look, but she ignored them.

Barkin glanced back, aware of his team's near-rebellion. "I think you've introduced enough 'new ideas' for one practice, Kim. Good enthusiasm, though."

He raised his voice to shout to the whole team. "Take five everybody, and drink some water. We still have serving practice later, and thanks to Kim's suggestions, everybody's going to take turns wearing the wrist and ankle weights. You can all thank her later."

"Oh, no big" said Kim, smiling innocently as she spoke.

Kim walked over to where Ron was. He had gotten to his feet and had a water bottle ready for her.

"Thanks, Ron," she said, taking a long swig. "You know, having you here, it's kind of like you're my personal trainer. It's neat."

"Thanks, I think." Ron rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, the usual signal he had something uncomfortable to say. "As your personal trainer, can I give you a little health advice?"

"Go ahead," replied Kim.

"Being beaten on the head with eight tennis racquets? Kind of unhealthy. And that's where things are going, if you keep pushing the rest of the team like you have last practice and this one." Ron pretended to hit Kim with an imaginary racquet to make his point.

Kim waved off the imaginary assault, irritated. "I just want the rest of the team to do well, that's all. Mr. Barkin likes it."

"Hey, it's your head, Kim. I'm just saying, don't be surprised if a lot of those practice serves end up 'accidentally' heading off in your direction."

"Not from me. I'll match whatever Kim wants to do," said a voice from behind them. It was Monique, of course.

"I'm glad you're on board," said Kim. "You didn't…" She trailed off.

"I didn't feel that way at first?" said Monique. "Okay girl, honest truth is I felt a little threatened at you showing up as the next great Middleton tennis star. But then I thought, is that the way an ultra-cool friend like yours truly should act? I think not. So I'm taking it as a challenge. Whatever you can do, I'm going to do and do it better. And once we've taken out all the Upperton players in the tournament, you and I are going to fight it out for top spot."

Kim nodded.

"And I'm going to win," added Monique.

"That's what you think," replied Kim with a definite edge in her voice.

"That's what I _know_."

They locked eyes, silently challenging each other. There was no hatred in the looks they were giving each other, but at the moment they seemed more like rivals than friends.

The stare-off was broken was a loud, maniacal laughter rolling across the court. It had a proper villainous cadence to it, though it was a bit nasally.

"Steve Barkin! How do you ever expect to beat me and my Upperton team when you let your team slack off like this?" It was Coach Thomas Rakket, leaning back against the entrance gate in a calculatedly contemptuous manner.

Mr. Barkin walked up to his rival, looking more exasperated than intimidated. Standing next to each other, the tall and muscular Barkin towered over the smaller man. "They're on a rest break, Tommy. Rest breaks are important when you're playing a serious game. I thought you would have figured that out when half your team dropped from exhaustion last year because you pushed them too hard."

Rakket's eyes flicked back and forth like a nervous rat. "That was last year. This year… will be different! My girls are a lean mean, team machine, and you have no chance!"

Barkin crossed his arms. "That's what you said last year too," he said in a tired-sounding voice.

By this time the entire Middleton team had gathered around to watch the show. Monique spoke up. "At least we've got our coach here, training us. Your team's coach is, this girl notices, in the wrong city on the wrong courts, talking to the wrong team. But I'm sure you have it all under control," Monique said snidely.

Coach Rakket was taken aback by the comment. "I- My team is so committed, they don't need me there to run the practice. I just tell them what they need to learn, and they learn it!"

* * *

(Back on the Upperton tennis courts)

A tennis ball streaked through the air so quickly that it ruptured when it hit the court, only giving a feeble bounce before it came to a stop.

Ten golden racquets were hoisted into the air. "Vic-tor-y! Vic-tor-y! Vic-tor-y!" chanted ten girls in unison.

"Middleton and then the world!" they continued. "Our game will be perfect."

They paired off and began practicing volleying, so perfectly coordinated that no ball touched the ground for minutes at a time.

* * *

"Y-yes," said Rakket. "With their discipline, our victory is assured."

"So what are you doing here, Tommy?" said Mr. Barkin. "If you're just here to spy on our practice and talk about your 'assured victory', I'm going to go ahead and escort you back to your car." He clenched his fists as if hoping the other coach would resist.

"On the contrary… Steve. I'm here on a matter of tradition. We've got to flip a coin to decide which courts we play on. Not that tradition matters to _you_, I'm sure."

"Fine," growled Barkin. "We could have done this without you interrupting our practice, but whatever."

"Good. Here, we can use this quarter." Rakket pulled a coin from his pocket and handed it to Barkin.

Mr. Barking examined the coin and seemed to find it acceptable. "I'll have one of my girls flip it, and you can call. Deal?"

Coach Rakket nodded in response.

Barkin surveyed his team for a moment. "Possible! Good hustle today. You can flip the coin."

"I can do anything," Kim muttered under her breath as she stepped up to take her place.

After Rakket indicated his readiness, Kim flipped the quarter off her finger and into the air. It spun rapidly, glittering in the sunlight. Kim watched it with an odd expression of intense concentration on her face.

"Heads!" called Coach Rakket as the coin spun.

Kim reached out to catch the coin as it fell and slapped it against her hand. Keeping her hands in plain view to show there was no trickery, she revealed the coin. It was tails.

Rakket huffed for a moment, and then said, "So be it. It'll be just as satisfying to defeat you in front of your whole town. Later, Steve." He walked back out into the parking lot.

Barkin watched him go, and then clapped his hands together. "All right, back to practice, people. Line up for me."

As they walked back into place, Kim said to Monique. "Now we have the home court advantage. Not bad, huh?" She sounded rather smug.

Monique shrugged. "Every bit helps, I guess. We got lucky." She looked at Kim with a measuring expression. "That… was luck, right Kim? You didn't like, fix the flip?"

Kim put on an innocent expression. "To do that, I'd have to be able to pull a spinning coin out of the air so it showed the side I want. Come on, Monique."

A minute later Monique realized that Kim hadn't actually denied anything.

* * *

Later that day, much later, the nachos were hot and the cheese thick at Bueno Nacho.

"Kim will be a little late," said Ron, sliding into the booth across from Monique with his tray of Mexican food. He was still wearing his mission clothes. "I'm sorry we had to have a delay on the after-practice crunch-off, but you know how it is when duty calls."

"That's all right," said Monique, spreading sauce on her burrito. "So Kim's not avoiding me, or anything?"

"No way," protested Ron. "I know the two of you have this competition thing going over the tennis, but Kim is still your friend. Believe it."

"I do, I do," Monique backtracked. She took a big bite of her burrito.

While her mouth was full, Ron took the opportunity to ask her something. "I was wondering, do you really think you're going to be able to beat Kim?"

Monique looked left, and then she looked right, chewing her food all the while. "Kim is your best friend, but the two of us are friends too, right? So if I tell you something in confidence, you're not going to rush off and tell her?"

"Cross my heart," said Ron, doing so. "I swear on Bueno Nacho."

"I- She just learns so fast. She already knows all my moves, and every time I come up with a new one, she figures it out after I use it only once. I probably can't beat her."

Before Ron could reply, Monique raised up a finger of silence. "But I'll make her work for it, and I won't give up until she actually does beat me. Having to deal with a little friendly competition will be good for her."

Ron picked up a cheese-covered nacho and held it out. "Now that's what I call being a friend."

Monique picked up her own nacho knocked it against his in a toast.

"Booyah."

* * *

Author's Note:

If Kim's explanation of her mother's motives does not satisfy, that's okay. Remember that Kim is giving this to us second-hand. She doesn't fully understand what her mother was thinking. I don't think I'm overestimating Kim's abilities, though.

Originally, the opening scene between Kim and Ron was going to be two paragraphs long and take place in Bueno Nacho. I thought that was boring, though, and I decided I wanted to show them talking on a mission. It sort of grew from there. From the series, I get the impression a lot of their missions aren't against supervillains, it's just that those are the ones the show usually shows us.

I realized that it was not credible that Kim would have kept a secret like the no-sports thing from Ron. They seem to tell each other everything. I did think, however, that it would be reasonable for Ron to have simply forgotten about it. And it made a funny bit.

Thank you again to all the people who commented. You've really kept me going when it comes to this fanfiction business, and your comments were a big inspiration to write this thing. Even just saying you're reading helps and those of you with specific comments be assured I thought about them carefully.

Two more chapters on 'The Kimpetitive Edge', probably, but I already have a couple more Kim Possible fics in mind that will be quite different from this one.


	4. Chapter 4

Note: I'm going from some really old memories and Wikipedia on the tennis stuff, so nobody get mad if I make a few mistakes, okay?

* * *

It was the day of the big game. "Big game" was of course a relative matter. As Coach Rakket drove the Upperton team into Middleton, he didn't hear anything about the day's inter-city tennis tournament on the radio. There were no signs advertising the match-up, and though mention had been made in the sports section of the newspaper, it had been on the second page.

Still, the impending confrontation was of importance to _some_ people.

From the driver's seat of the rental van, Rakket looked glanced back over his shoulder. "I'd just like to express my confidence in all of you girls," he said in his usual nasally voice. "Today's match-up is going to wipe away all the shame of Upperton's losing record. All of my shame…"

Rakket tightened his grip on the steering wheel in a momentary rage.

"Keep your eyes on the road, Coach Rakket," said Robin, who was taking shotgun in the seat next to him. The blonde girl had her golden-stringed racquet clutched tightly in her hands, as did all the girls on the team.

"I can drive perfectly fine without your advice," Rakket told Robin.

"Incorrect," said one of the girls behind him. "You are imperfect," said another. "You exist only to aid in our perfection," said a third. The girls of the tennis team seemed to have no trouble coordinating their speaking, one picking up smoothly where another left off.

"Aheh," said Coach Rakket in a forced jocular tone. "Yes, of course you're the perfect tennis team. Working together, you'll crush Middleton!"

"We will complete Phase One," said Robin.

There was a moment of silence in the van as Coach Rakket processed this. Finally, he asked in a weak voice, "Phase one? Is there- Does that mean there will be a phase two?"

"Phase one, win the intercity tennis tournament between Middleton and Upperton," said one girl behind him. "Phase two, use our perfection to conquer the world," continued another.

"Perfection must conquer imperfection," said Robin. "It is only logical," continued the thought in a voice from the back row.

"That was not part of the plan," protested Rakket. "I didn't ask for this! I just wanted something that would push a team to the next level, not-"

"Your plans are irrelevant," said Robin, pushing her racquet under Rakket's chin in a threatening manner. "You will aid in our perfection," said another of the girls. "Or you will be eliminated," added a third.

Rakket swallowed nervously. "Right. Of course. Phase one, then phase two, how silly of me. I'll just keep driving then, shall I?"

A cold silence surrounded him as he gently pushed down harder on the accelerator.

* * *

Kim was leading her team in stretching exercises. "One, two, get the legs up," she called out.

Off to the sidelines, Mr. Barkin and Ron were watching. "Aren't those the same warm-up exercises Kim uses for Cheer Squad?" asked Ron.

"Don't mess with what works," replied Barkin gruffly. "Got to admit, Stoppable, your pal really whipped the team into shape this year."

"Yeah, she can be like that," said Ron, not totally approvingly. "I-"

He was interrupted by a commotion from the entrance gate. The first thing audible was the sound of tennis shoes hitting the pavement in perfect unison. Next came the sound of voices repeating the word, "Upp-er-ton, upp-er-ton," over and over. After that, Coach Thomas Rakket came into view, looking like he wished he was somewhere else. Behind him marched the Upperton tennis team, almost as if they were herding him inescapably into the courts.

Unlike the Middleton team, they were wearing matched uniforms and carrying their team racquets. They seemed to move together as a unit, without a single gap or hesitation in their formation.

"Is it just me, or are they kind of scary?" Ron asked Barkin.

Steve Barkin looked as though he were having a bit of trouble taking all of this in. "They're more impressive than last year's team, I have to give them that."

The Middleton team had stopped their warm-up to watch the newcomers. One of the girls on the team complained, "Coach Barkin, why do they get team uniforms and team racquets, and we get nothing?"

"Yeah," piped up another team member.

"Because the city donates the courts, the balls, and a fifty dollar budget for putting up flyers and that's it, that's why," answered Barkin. He rubbed his chin. "I guess somebody over in Upperton is desperate for a win this year."

"Well they're not going to get it, declared Kim in a loud, clear voice. She pointed at the opposing team and said, "Not going to happen."

* * *

Mr. Barkin explained the rules of the tournament, using a portable white board to illustrate. It was generally felt that they were on the complicated side.

"…so you see that if player number 22 wins match 3B on a tie-breaker, they will go on to face the winner of game 7B. If it's a blow-out, of course they wait on the sidelines until the previous match is completed," said Barkin, tapping several concentric circles on the white board.

Monique raised her hand. "Coach… I think I can't be the only one a little unclear on how there can be a player 22 when there's only ten of us on each side."

"Good catch, Monique," said Barkin. "In this case, number 22 is only a placeholder to indicate an indeterminate winner of…"

"Do you understand this, Wade?" said Kim quietly as Barkin continued talking. She was holding up her Kimmunicator so that Wade could see the white board.

"Of course I do, Kim. I'm a genius," replied Wade.

"Well can you explain it to me?" asked Kim.

"And maybe to me," said Ron, who was huddled next to Kim.

"Well, I.…" Wade's eyes on the screen looked back and forth between Ron and Kim. "You know, I'm sure the coaches and referees will let you know when to play. Just remember that whichever team has at least two of the top three players will be the overall winner."

Before they could reply, the screen winked out.

"Everything all right, kids?" called a familiar voice from behind them.

They turned to see Kim's mother. She was dressed in a jacket and casual clothing, and she was carrying a small sign with the words 'Go Possible!' on it.

"Everything is fine, Mom. We were just talking with Wade, but not anything mission-related." said Kim.

"Oh, good. I'm really looking forward to watching you play, Kimmie. It's too bad your father can't be here, but you know he had to go with Jim and Tim."

"I know, the twins had their own thing. No big. I'm just surprised that you didn't go with them and send Dad here instead. Since you didn't want me to-" Kim cut herself off in mid-sentence, but it was too late.

Mrs. Dr. Possible was blinking and not looking at her daughter straight-on. It was obvious that what Kim had said had hurt her. "I see. Well, I have a folding chair set up over there. I'll just get out of your way."

She walked off, leaving Kim and Ron standing there. "Kim!" said Ron. He flailed his hands about helplessly, as if he wanted to say more but couldn't find the words.

Kim looked back at him, ashamed. "I didn't mean to hurt her. I guess I'm not as okay with everything as I thought I was."

"But you'll talk to her later, right?" asked Ron. "I know she's your mom, but she's kind of like a mom to me too. I mean, I have my own mother, so it's more like she's a second mother. Not that I'm saying your mother is second to anybody, but-"

"Ron," Kim interrupted. "I'll talk to her later."

They stood uncomfortably for a while, until the referees called for the teams to line up.

In a few minutes, the first two matches were beginning, and Ron took his place on the sidelines to collect stray balls. Kim and Monique stood next to each other, watching the first games of the matches. The Kimmunicator perched on a small stand beside them facing the courts so that Wade could watch if he felt like it.

"First serve from our side. Let's see what they've- Eeeww," commented Kim.

"That was not pretty," agreed Monique. "Maybe the other- Nope. I have to say, these girls are good!"

"There's something weird about the way they move, though," replied Kim. "It's like they're… choreographed. They already have their moves picked out before they start."

"When your moves are as good as that, I can see why. Just their serves are blowing through our girls. We're not even getting to- nope."

There was silence while they watched things continue. "That's it, first game is over for both matches. I can't believe this, Upperton is going to roll us up!" said Monique.

"Maybe not." Kim narrowed her eyes and watched carefully as the next games of the matches began.

After a moment's consideration, she shouted, her voice carrying across the court. "Margaret, look for it on the upper left! Go low!"

On the court, the Middleton player Margaret managed to return an Upperton serve. However, she completely failed to get to the return volley in time.

"Kim! I know you're not up on tennis etiquette, but calling instructions from the sideline? Frowned upon," said Monique.

"Is it actually against the rules?" Kim said slyly.

Monique considered, brushing her hair back. "Well this is an intercity game, and it's not sanctioned, so I guess the refs won't do anythi-"

"Right high, Lisa, right high," shouted Kim.

"Come on, Kim. You really think you can talk our team through whatever you're seeing that the Upperton girls have got going? Two words. Not likely," said Monique.

"Maybe not. But if I can help draw things out far enough, I might be able to get Upperton to show enough of their moves that I can beat- OH GO BACK LISA, BACK!"

It was on this serve that the second game of that match-up ended. Lisa had gone too far back.

Monique glared at Kim, who shrugged in response. "Well, can't call them all right the first time."

They watched the remaining games of both match-ups play out. Monique slowly began to see what Kim had spotted so quickly. The Upperton players were very good at what they did, but they were also very limited. As fast as they could hit the ball, there were only a few parts of the court they would hit it to, and Monique was starting to think she saw vague 'tells' revealing what they were going to do. Still, they were very fast, especially at making the returns.

Upperton won the required four games out of seven in the first four games of each match, winning both matches. With Kim's guidance, Lisa and Margaret had actually managed to score a few points in their last two games, but that was it. It was now time for the next match-ups to begin. Kim was up, but Monique still waited on the sidelines.

Kim's first serve managed to catch her opponent off guard, scoring the first point of the first game against her Upperton opponent. Watching, Monique took it as a good sign. She observed more of Kim's play, then leaned down to the Kimmunicator and said softly, "Wade, are you watching?"

After a moment, the answer came back. "I'm keeping an eye out. I was actually going to blow this off- tennis not the most fun sport to watch. But then Kim started talking about those weird playing patterns, and when Kim says there's something weird, I listen. I'm getting some strange readings from those Upperton racquets too. I need to get Kim to scan one up close for me later." There followed a sound of soda being slurped through a straw as Wade sucked on his drink a bit too close to the audio pick-up.

"So can you actually see the, uh, choreography that Kim was talking about?" said Monique.

"I've been running the video feed through my computer and I've plotted some of their moves, yeah. Why? Kim seems to have a handle on it." As Wade paused, Kim missed a return volley, allowing her opponent to score a point. "Well, she's getting a handle on it, anyway."

"Because I don't got a handle on it," Monique told Wade. "I mean, I'm starting to see it, but there's no way I can keep track out on the court. I was thinking it you had an earpiece attachment to that thing, I could wear it out on the court and you could help me figure out what I'm doing enough to made a game of it."

There was silence from Wade's end for a moment. "Isn't that cheating?"

Monique started counting on her fingers. "One, advice is not cheating. Two, both you and Kim think something weird is going on, and if both of you think that, you're probably right and we're just balancing the scales. Three, Middleton needs two of the top three players to win the tournament. It doesn't matter if Kim can beat them if I can't. And four-" She stopped.

"Four?" asked Wade after a moment.

"Four, since when have you been Mr. Ethics, Wade? I know you have Ron chipped."

"Got me there." A small metal tendril emerged from the side of the Kimmunicator. It crept up Monique and deposited an earplug snugly into her ear.

"Ooooh, Wade, you have the most supple metal arms," teased Monique.

"Uhhh," was Wade's response in her ear, and Monique knew he was blushing even without seeing his image on screen.

They waited for a while, then Monique got to her feet. "I can do this. I can do this. If Kim can do this, I can do this." Kim was still playing her match, having won one game, lost another, and being in the midst of dominating a third. Meanwhile Tina, the other Middleton player on the field, had just finished losing her game. They were calling for a new pair of players on what had been Tina's court.

* * *

After winning her match four games to one, Kim took the opportunity to head over to where her mother was sitting. Ron delegated ball boy duties to Rufus for a few minutes and followed her, trying to act like he wasn't interested in what Kim would say and failing miserably at it.

Just as Kim got there, her mother sprang out of her chair shouting, "Go Monique, go! Win one for Middleton! Woo-hoo!"

The words spilled out of Kim's mouth before she knew she was saying them. "Monique gets a woo-hoo?"

Mrs. Dr. Possible turned to her daughter. "I cheered for you when you were up, Kim. And Monique isn't just on your team, she's your friend. Are you saying you don't want me cheering for her?"

"No! That's not what I'm saying. I just… I don't want you cheering for her louder than you're cheering for me. I don't remember getting a woo-hoo," said Kim.

Mrs. Dr. Possible considered. "I'm not sure whether I woo-hooed you or not, but I definitely will for your next match. It's just that you can see Monique is trying so hard, and she's doing much better than the other girls on your team."

"The other girls on my team other than me who actually won her match, you mean," Kim griped, trying not to sound petty.

"Well of course that's true, but Monique doesn't have Photographic Reflexes like you do, Kimmie, so I can't expect the same out of her as I do you" replied her mother.

"Photo-what?" said Ron. He looked at Kim and she just shrugged her ignorance.

Kim turned to her mother and repeated Ron's question. "Photo-what?"

"Photographic Reflexes." Kim's mother twisted her hands together as though wishing she hadn't used those words, but she continued. "It's just the semi-technical term for your condition, Kim. Not strictly medically accurate, but it gets the idea across in the medical journals."

"Condition!" said Kim in an alarmed voice. "I have a condition now? I mean, what?"

Ron suddenly ran up and clutched Mrs. Dr. Possible's sleeve. "Is Kim sick? If she's sick, you can tell me. I can take it. I'll help her get through it. Bed rest needed? No problem, I'll make her soup every day. You're a great doctor, and we can get Kim through this."

"Ronald, no!" Mrs. Dr. Possible pushed Ron away gently. "It's not that sort of condition. Condition was a bad word to use. Ability might be a better word."

"So I have this condition and you've been keeping it a secret from me?" protested Kim. Her eyes were wide.

"No, no, no. Just calm down and listen to me, Kimmie," insisted Mrs. Dr. Possible. "You know better than I do that you have the ability to learn certain physical skills and become expert in them very quickly, don't you?"

"Well… not bragging, but yes," said Kim, still looking a bit excitable.

"And you understand how you do this, right?"

Kim spoke slowly. "I watch someone do something, and I figure out their moves and how they do it. Then I try a little bit, and I can do the same thing." She was thoughtful for a moment, then added, "Sometimes when I'm trying to figure out something really weird, like how to roller skate along a wall while being pulled along by an overcharged floor polisher slash killer robot, I think about a bunch of little moves that could all be part of what I want to do, and I put them together in my head really quick. And then I do them."

Kim's mother patiently led her daughter along. "You also understand that other people _can't_ do that, correct?"

"Well, not nearly as well as I can. I mean, I've helped the cheer squad to learn things and it always seems to take them a while to pick up on a new move. But after I show them what I want a few times, they eventually start getting closer and closer to the move."

Mrs. Dr. Possible reached out and squeezed her daughter's shoulder briefly. "Not anything like you can. They practice, but they never get it exactly right, do they? They can't imitate you the way you can imitate them."

Kim spoke very quietly. "No, they never get it exactly right."

"I'm a mother and a doctor. When my four year old daughter started doing back-flips and displaying perfect balance without any gymnastic training, I would have been failing both duties not to try to figure out what was happening. You probably don't remember, but I did quite a few tests on you, and I found something wonderful. You had the ability to learn physical skills just by watching someone do it once. We brought in your Uncle Slim and let you watch him handle a lasso, and you were able to duplicate it perfectly. I let you watch an Olympics gymnast tape, and you duplicated her routine.

"I searched and searched to see if there were any precedents, and I didn't find many. A case from forty years ago where a boy was reported to be able to do similar things. A few cases farther back. It was enough to let me put a name to your condition- ability, sorry. As to how you do it… I'm a brain surgeon, but that just means that I know enough to know how little we know about the brain. I know the secret is somewhere in how your mind and memory can talk to the rest of your body, but I can't even guess what the details are."

"Whoa," said Ron. "You know K.P., from now on when you do some amazing stunt and I'm trying just to keep up, I'm not going to feel nearly as bad. I'm just going to say, 'photographic reflexes'. She's got it, I don't, and that's all the excuse I need."

Kim rolled her eyes and punched Ron in the shoulder affectionately. "You have mystical monkey power to fall back on," she said.

She returned her attention to her mother. "So you decided it would be unfair to let me play sports because I had this ability."

Mrs. Dr. Possible gave the impression of someone about to say something she didn't want to say. "Being 'unfair' was part of it, but I had another reason too. I knew that with this ability, you wouldn't have to work at mastering sports. It would just come easily to you. I worried about your development. If you could just spend all your time at hobbies that didn't take any effort for you, you might not develop a good work ethic. So I convinced your father that we needed to keep you out of the usual competitive sports, even though you wanted to do them so badly, so that you wouldn't have your hobbies come too easily."

"Oh." Kim processed for a few moments. "But you let me join cheer squad."

"You were older by that time, and I could see what a fine, determined young woman you were growing into. Also, cheer squad is a team effort. It's not enough to have one cheerleader able to pull off a routine, you all have to work together. And I was a cheerleader once myself. Didn't have the heart to say no."

Mother and daughter considered in silence for a moment.

Ron spoke up again. "But there have been things that Kim couldn't learn to do quickly. Like when she tried making burrito wraps. Or the first time she tried to drive."

"Really? Ronald, I told you I don't fully understand Kim's ability. It's possible that her emotional state or not really wanting to learn something could keep her from doing it properly. Or maybe there are just certain tasks she can't learn the easy way, for some reason I couldn't guess at." Kim's mother looked at her apologetically. "I'm sorry that I don't have any answers for you on things like that, Kim."

"That's fine Mom. I'm a little into the drama here, suddenly finding out I'm the freak of the family."

"Kim! You already knew what you could do. I just put a name to it."

"But does this- does this mean you aren't proud of me for what I do? If it's all just some trick in my brain." There was a quaver in Kim's voice.

"Oh Kimmie." Mrs. Dr. Possible reached out and hugged her daughter. "We all have our talents, it's what you do with them that matters. You try to help people, and sometimes your talent helps with that and sometimes it doesn't. I remember how much time you spent putting up those save the manatee posters, and that didn't come from being able to do high-kicks. I know your ability doesn't make schoolwork any easier either, but you still bring home straight A's. You work hard at everything you do, and I am very proud of you."

They held each other for just a moment, then Kim pushed her mother way, suddenly a bit embarrassed at sharing a warm family moment out in front of everyone.

"Booyah!" shouted Ron, jumping up and down.

"Ron!" Kim said, ready to chide him for cheering warm family moments. Then she realized that Ron's attention was somewhere else entirely.

"Did Monique just win?" said Kim.

"Scorekeeper says three games to three. She's got to win the last one to win the match, but the Monique has Upperton's number now. She can do it," said Ron.

"And the way they're all playing alike, if she can beat any one of them, she can probably beat any of the others," said Kim. "This is great. Between the two of us, we can win it for the team!"

There was a squeal at their feet as Rufus came rolling up, wrapped around a ball he was desperately trying to stop. Ron reached down and picked the mole rat and the ball up. "Sorry pal. I'd better get back on duty, but I'll be cheering you, Kim."

Kim nodded. "I think I've got another match coming up soon. Thanks for coming out and cheering me on, Mom."

Mrs. Dr. Possible raised up her 'Go Possible!' flag and raised it as Kim went back to her team.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Coach Thomas Rakket was attempting to place a call on his cell phone. "Come on, come on, pick up!"

* * *

Elsewhere, a phone was ringing in the lair of Dr. Drakken.

Drakken was underneath a platform holding some sort of ray gun, fiddling with wires trailing out underneath. When the phone on the workbench next to him started ringing, he groped for it blindly with his hand, not bothering to pull his eyes away from his current task.

Drakken's hand first came down on one side of the phone, then the other, then in front of it, then behind, somehow managing to miss the phone every time as it continued to ring. Finally Shego, who had been lounging nearby, sighed to herself and gently pushed the receiver underneath Drakken's hand.

"This is Dr. Drakken."

Drakken listened to the voice on the other end for a moment.

"How did you get this number? I'm at my secret lair, and I don't remember giving the number out to-"

He stopped, listening to the voice some more.

"Oh, my eBay profile. All right, listen, this is not a customer service line. I sold you the things and that's it. I'm done with it. Caveat emptor."

The voice on the other end said something else. It was sufficient to make Drakken slide out from underneath the death ray and look at Shego unhappily.

Drakken covered the receiver and spoke to Shego. "He says if I don't help him, he's going to give me a bad eBay sales review. I can't avoid another bad sales review, Shego. Not after that business with the exploding action figures."

"You mean the exploding dolls," said Shego.

"Action figures, Shego!" protested Drakken, in the tone of someone picking up an argument.

Shego rolled her eyes. "All right, this I have to hear. I'm putting him on speaker." She took the receiver from Drakken and hit a button on the phone's base. "Yo dimwit, who are you and what's your problem?"

"This is Thomas Rakket. I bought some racquets from you that were supposed to make my tennis team into winners, but they're not working right! The girls all keep talking about winning the tennis tournament and then taking over the world. I just want to win the tennis tournament. But they aren't even doing that! Two of the other team's players are beating them."

"Hold on a minute, sport," said Shego. She hit the mute button waved her hand for Drakken to explain.

Drakken shifted uncomfortably under Shego's gaze. "I've been experimenting with selling evil technology online. Online sales are the future, you know. I wish they'd had it when I was growing-"

"Yeah, yeah," Shego interrupted. "Back to the evil tennis racquets."

"The man wanted to make sure that his tennis team won their tournament. So I threw together some odds and ends I had in the lab. I used some leftover AIs from the Beebe series robots, some visual/tactile interfaces to induce a hypnotic state, and I taped a couple of professional tennis tournaments and fed the moves into their memory. It's just some silly teenaged girls' team, so I figured that would be enough for them to become winners."

"Uh-huh," said Shego. "And them wanting to take over the world?"

"The Beebe series is a little twitchy. Too much ego for an AI. They think they're perfect and better than anyone else, which means that they should logically take over the world. How ridiculous."

"Not like how you want to take over the world," said Shego sarcastically

"Exactly. Totally different," said an oblivious Drakken.

Shego shook her head. "You know what? I'm changing my mind. You handle this. I don't want to hear any more."

She sauntered off, picking up a magazine along the way. Drakken shouted after her, "Fine, I will!"

He hit the mute button again. "Rakket, are you still there?"

"Yes."

"First of all, let's get this straight. I promised an improvement in your team's performance. Im-prove-ment. I didn't say they could beat anyone. Now are they or are they not improved?"

"I… didn't exactly wait to see them play without the racquets, but I suppose they're doing better than they would if-"

"Right!" shouted Drakken at his phone. "Second, I never said it wouldn't make them want to take over the world. You work with evil technology, you have to accept a few simple side effects."

"But-"

"What are you worried about, anyway? It's not like a few teenaged girls have the mojo to take over the world. They're not Kim Possible or something. So they try and fail and get locked up. Anyway, if they're getting beaten in your silly little game, it won't even be a problem. The racquet AIs are programmed to think that they're perfect. Being defeated at tennis will cause a logical fault, since it proves they aren't perfect, and it'll break the hypnotic programming."

Rakket's voice whined out of the speaker. "I still think you owe me a little more help, here."

Drakken's eyes tightened in rage. "I owe you nothing! I gave you everything I promised, and if you dare give me a bad eBay review, I'll find you and I'll make you very, very, sorry."

"Wait, I-" began Rakket.

Drakken slammed the receiver down, cutting the connection. He brushed off his tunic and suddenly smiled, realizing he had just won an argument. It was a very satisfying feeling.

* * *

Meanwhile….

Kim pushed off from the ground, meeting the ball in mid-air to slam it to the other side of the court. She was winning, but it wasn't quite effortless. After her and Monique's victories, the Upperton team had had some kind of strange conference, apparently to rethink their strategies.

When Upperton returned to the field, they had mixed up their moves a bit. It had taken a bit of work on Kim's part to figure out the new patterns, but eventually she succeeded after losing only one game. This whole business was definitely a bit strange, but Kim figured she would get Wade to help sort it out later, after Middleton was declared the tournament winner.

Kim read the signals. Her opponent was serving, and it was going to be a fast drive straight to center. She moved out to meet it, arm shaking a bit from the impact of her racquet against the ball. The Upperton team member wasn't able to return the volley, but it hadn't gone quite where Kim had intended to put it, either. Her racquet was feeling a bit strange in her hand, too.

Looking, Kim let out a groan. She'd struck with such force, the strings in her racquet had broken. She'd have to borrow a replacement from someone else. Kim waved her busted racquet at the referee to indicate her dilemma and walked off to the sidelines. To her surprise, one of the Upperton girls moved out to meet her. Kim recognized it as the same girl she had beaten in her first match.

The girl held her golden-stringed racquet out to Kim, seeming a bit dazed. "You beat me. I am- I'm not perfect. Here, this should be yours. You play with it."

There was a bit of hesitation on Kim's part, but only a little. She did need a replacement racquet, after all.

So Kim Possible reached out and took hold of the golden-stringed racquet.

* * *

Ron paced the length of the court, ready and alert for any stray balls. As he did, he came up next to Coach Rakket, who was apparently listening to someone on his cell phone.

"I still think you owe me a little more help, here," Rakket said into the phone.

Something he heard on the other end made him wince. "Wait, I just want to…. Drakken, are you still there? Dr. Drakken, are you still there?"

Ron heard these last words quite clearly. They caused him to abandon his post as ball boy for a second time that day, as he headed immediately for the Upperton coach, determined to find out what was behind all the weirdness of the day.

While he did, Kim stared at the golden strings of her wonderful new tennis racquet.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Next time, it's the showdown that's been building since the beginning, Monique versus Kim. But the stakes have been raised dramatically, as it seems the only way to save Kim is to defeat her! Just one little problem. How is an ordinary teenager supposed to beat the girl who can do anything? Find out in the final chapter, as Kim and her friends uncover once and for all, the secret of… "The Kimpetitive Edge"!

Heh.

Where this story came from. I was reading a few Kim Possible fanfics, just getting into the fandom, and I was trying to figure out, what does "she can do anything" actually mean? Some fics seem to treat what Kim does as something anybody could do if they really tried and trained, but it seems to me that Kim has some extraordinary talent that can't be so easily duplicated. I think my primary inspiration came after watching the Coach Possible episode and 'A Sitch in Time'. In Coach Possible, Kim goes from knowing nothing at all about soccer to being a smooth ball handler in the next scene. It's true she's just demonstrating against ten year olds, but she still seemed awfully good for someone who never touched a soccer ball before. In, "A Sitch in Time," pre-K Kim starts spontaneously doing flips to defend Ron against her toddler terror enemies. Later, her early teen self easily pulls off a cheerleading routine that Bonnie had declared 'impossible'. Even though Kim sometimes attributes her athletic abilities to things she learned while cheerleading, it seems like the true source of her abilities is instinctual, not something she trained or worked for.

So I hit upon stealing a concept called 'Photographic Reflexes' from some comic books I've read. The idea is simple. If a person with PR sees someone do something, they can immediately pull it off themselves. I think 'photographic reflexes' is a really cool and evocative-sounding name, and it straddled an interesting line between 'superpower' and 'incredible natural talent'. I'm not saying it's the only interpretation of what Kim can do, and it probably contradicts something in the show here or there, but as an easy explanation for what she can and can't do, I kind of like it.

Of course, if I spent all this story time building up Kim's abilities, having her fight some main bad guy at the end of the story wouldn't be very exciting. Obviously, the only logical choice was to make 'unbeatable' Kim into the person who has to be beaten by the good guys. This ought to be fun.

Now let's see, I forgot to individually thank commentators last time. So thanks to lab1152, eckles, Triaxx2, gargoylesama, Cold-Chaos, campy, and Corencio for their comments on chapter 2.

Thanks to Triaxx2, Jezrianna2.0, and Pesterfield for their comments on Chapter 3. Pesterfield, robot-Kim would be an interesting idea, even though it wasn't where I was going with this one. Triazz2, you said you guessed where the story was going. Was this what you guessed?


	5. Chapter 5

"Nice day, huh?" said Ron, sidling up next to Coach Rakket.

Rakket was still staring in despair at his cell phone. He blinked in confusion at being addressed. "Wha- what? Nice day? There's nothing nice about it!"

Ron narrowed his eyes and said to Rakket, "Oh, I think you think it's a nice day. A nice day… for evil!" He suddenly whipped his hand around and pointed an accusatory finger in Rakket's face.

"I… No," was all that Rakket could sputter, looking confused.

"Don't play dumb with me. I heard you on the phone, talking with Dr. Drakken. You're one of his henchman, aren't you? Well, not a professional HenchCo henchman, obviously," said Ron, taking in Rakket's scrawny form as he said this last. "But definitely in that line of work!"

"I do not work for Dr. Drakken," protested Rakket. He drew himself up to his full height in an attempt to tower over Ron, only to realize that he was slightly shorter than Stoppable.

"Do so, do so, do so. What's the evil plan? Attack Kim while she's distracted? It's exploding tennis balls, isn't it. Oh, I bet that's it. It's always the exploding athletic equipment with you villain types. Duff Killigan is going to go all whacko on you when he finds out you're stealing his exploding balls trick. Totally whacko." As he said this, Ron danced around Rakket, jabbing his finger into the man's face from many different angles.

Coach Rakket reached forward and shoved Ron away, causing Stoppable to stumble back and fall on the ground. "I don't know anything about exploding tennis balls. And if anyone's a henchman here, it's you. Ball boy? Please, it's obvious that you're Steve Barkin's henchman."

Ron gasped. "You take that back! Mr. Barkin and I have a relationship based on misunderstanding, dislike, and distrust, and I am not his henchman. He's had it in for me ever since I gave him a funny look."

"Listen kid, Barkin is my mortal enemy. I think if anyone can recognize a Barkin henchman, it's me," said Rakket.

"I'm telling you, Barkin hates me! The man yells at me whenever I screw up, and he always makes me see what I did wrong. He'll give me chances to do stuff with his teams or help him out, but he's always on my case about doing things the right way. And he's always giving me advice on how to be a man," said Ron, climbing back to his feet. As he spoke, the tenor of his voice gradually changed from certainty to uncertainty.

Coach Rakket smirked at him.

Ron opened and closed his mouth, thinking. "Okay, so maybe Barkin doesn't completely hate me," he said. "But that still doesn't make me his henchman. I mean, I'm Kim Possible's sidekick. A sidekick is a step above henchman on the social ladder."

Rakket frowned. "Kim Possible? Wait a minute, that redhead out there on Barkin's team…. Is that Kim Possible?"

"The one and only," said Ron smoothly. "Don't pretend you didn't know who your boss was sending the exploding tennis balls after."

Rakket began vibrating with anger. "I don't believe it. Barkin brought in a ringer! That no-good jerk, he cheated first! He got Kim Possible on his team. Oh, how he must have laughed. He'll pay. Maybe not this year, but there's always next year, and then he'll pay. No wonder Dr. Drakken's racquets aren't working. Everybody knows that Possible always beats Drakken."

"So you admit it. You _are_ working for Drakken!" said Ron, starting to point the accusatory finger of doom at Rakket a second time.

"If anything, Drakken is working for me," said Rakket, irritated and still a bit distracted by thoughts of Barkin. "Well, was working for me. I bought some technology from him on eBay, but he's not interested in helping me out now that it's started to go wonky."

"Exploding tennis ball type technology?" said Ron, never quite willing to let go of an idea once he had gotten it into his head.

"No. No, no, no. I bought some hypnotic tennis racquets. Year after year in Upperton, I've coached teams of slackers who barely put in any effort and then had the nerve to call me a lousy coach. Me! As if it was my fault how bad they were. This year was going to me different, though. The mind control racquets I bought from Drakken should have made the team into an unstoppable juggernaut, intent on nothing but victory. It _did_ make them intent only on victory!"

Rakket paused, hands stretched out into the air in supplication. Then he collapsed to his knees and began crying. "But they're losing! This year was supposed to be different, and it's all the same. One minute they're out to conquer the world, the next moment they can't even conquer the court. It's just so not fair."

"Whoa, whoa," said Ron, who had a finely tuned ear for certain turns of phrase. "What was that about conquering the world? Because that sounds like we're back into villain territory."

Rakket shrugged. "As a side effect of the hypno-racquets that dominated their minds, they wanted to go conquer the world or something after they won the tournament. I was a little worried for a while, but Drakken said that once they were beaten in tennis, it would break the programming. After they _lose_. We're… we're going to be losers again."

Ron tried to say something, but Rakket's sobbing had gotten much louder and he was slinking off to behind the bleachers to cry to himself some more. After a moment's hesitation, Ron decided not to follow.

Instead he turned to search the area for Kim. He spotted her walking out onto the courts, just about to start another match. "Kim! Hey Kim, wait till you hear what I have to-"

Ron's voice strangled to a stop in his throat as Kim gestured to him from a fair distance away. In her hand she was holding what Ron recognized as one of the hypno-racquets. She took a step towards him.

He frantically waved her off. "Nothing important!" he shouted. "Just go back to your game. Not interfering in any way."

Kim stopped her advance. She was just far enough away that he couldn't quite make out the expression on her face. Then she turned and headed back to face off against her opponent.

Ron fled towards the only source of help available.

"Wade, I need help," Ron whispered at the Kimmunicator as he snuck up next to it.

"A little busy now, Ron. Can it wait?" said Wade. Ron wasn't positioned so that he could see the screen, but the sound of a keyboard being rapidly typed on accompanied Wade's voice.

"Sure, if mind-controlled Kim taking over the world isn't a problem for you," whispered Ron.

On the court, Monique suddenly missed a shot. "A little attention here, Wade," she said.

"Sorry Monique, but you're going to have to finish this on your own. Something's come up," said Wade. His voice from both the Kimmunicator and the plug in Monique's ear.

"Wade?" said Ron, confused.

"Mind-controlled Kim, right," answered Wade. "Ron, I don't get to say this a lot, but what's the sitch?"

They both ignored the distant sound of Monique shouting, "Oh no you didn't!"

Ron spoke in a hushed tone. "Long story short, the psycho Upperton coach bought some mind-control racquets from Drakken to help his team win. Now Kim's playing with one of the racquets, so she's under the mind-mojo too. Crazy coach says that if she wins this tennis tournament, the programming is going to make her try to conquer the world."

"Ron?" whispered Wade.

"Yes?" said Ron, putting his lips close to the Kimmunicator's receiver.

"Why are we whispering?" boomed Wade's voice at twice normal volume.

"Because I didn't want Kim to…." Ron trailed off lamely.

"Kim is all the way over there; she can't hear us," said Wade.

"All right, sorry," said Ron. He turned the Kimmunicator so that Wade faced him. "You don't have to get on my case about it."

Wade looked apologetic. "Sorry. It's just… I get a little freaked when Kim's in trouble."

"Oh, I am way more freaked than you, my friend," said Ron.

"It's not a competition, Ron. It's- Okay, the story about the hypnotic racquets has got to be true. It explains these weird readings I've been getting, as well as why the Upperton team is acting so strangely. So what do we do now?"

"Well, crazy coach said that if the player gets beaten at tennis, the hypnosis gets broken. So we just have to make sure Kim doesn't win the tournament," said Ron.

"But if one of the Upperton team beats her, then they'll still be hypnotized. And the only one on the Middleton team with a chance would be- Monique!"

The Kimmunicator turned on its own power, just in time to see Monique miss another shot. Wade began frantically reading off tennis instructions from his computer, and gradually he was able to talk her back to winning the match.

Afterwards, Monique walked up to the two of them, looking angry. "What exactly did you think you were doing flaking out on me?" she demanded.

Wade and Ron looked at her uncomfortably, then began to explain.

* * *

Kim paced back and forth in front of the area where the Upperton team members were sitting. She had just won her match with their last remaining player. "You have been defeated," she said, slapping her racquet into the palm of her hand. "You are imperfect and you _were_ destroyed. Middleton will rule!"

One of the defeated players bowed her head. "Yes, we are imperfect." Another defeated player continued, "We are not worthy to rule." Still another added, "Win the tournament and prove your superiority."

"Okay, I believe it now," said Monique to Ron as they watched from what Ron considered a safe distance. "Seriously freaky things are going on with that girl."

"So you can beat her, right?" asked Ron anxiously. "I mean, you've been beating the Upperton players when nobody else on the team except Kim could."

Monique smiled uncertainly. "I'm better than the rest of the Middleton squad… but not that much better. I can only beat Upperton because Wade's helping me, and that's not going to work against Kim. Even hypnotized, she still has her moves."

"Not sounding like a yes, Monique," said Ron. He sounded and looked worried.

Wade spoke from the Kimmunicator. "Maybe Monique can't outplay Kim on her own, but the three of us working together can make sure Kim loses."

"Breaking out the cheating to save Kim. I like. Now if we could just do that for my homework once in a while," said Ron.

"I agreed to doing whatever we have to, but how come I'm facing off with Kim in about half a minute, and I'm still not the wiser on the plan your twisted and youthful mind has conceived?" said Monique.

There was a significant pause. "I've been too busy trying to arrange- Olay, you're on. Don't worry, I'll explain things via your earpiece as we go."

"Terrific," muttered Monique. She walked to take her place across the net from Kim.

Kim gave Monique a salute with her racquet, which Monique returned. Neither of them said anything.

Wade spoke in Monique's ear. "Don't have all my assets in place yet, but the transmissions I've been getting indicate that Drakken reused his Bebe-bot technology to build these things. I'm going to try jamming their wireless network. Each racquet might have its own brain, but maybe stopping them from talking to each other will help Kim snap out of it."

"That's a lot of maybes and might, genius boy," said Monique as she threw a ball up and down a few times, delaying the serve for a few seconds.

"Okay, I've pitched the disruption signal above human hearing. Go now, while she's confused," ordered Wade.

Monique let loose with her best serve. Kim calmly and smoothly moved out to meet it, returning a volley that Monique couldn't manage to stop.

"Fifteen, love," announced a referee.

"Ah, heh-heh. I guess they don't need to talk to each other to keep control," said Wade.

"Oh, you noticed," replied Monique as she braced herself for Kim's serve.

Meanwhile, Ron was making his way out the gate. More accurately, Ron was trying to make his way out of the gate.

"Abandoning your post, Stoppable," said Mr. Barkin. "While your best friend is playing for the top spot, too. So typical." The big man was blocking Ron's exit.

"It's not like that, Mr. Barkin," protested Ron. "I'm just taking a break." He hopped from one foot to another, trying to find a way past Barkin.

Barkin raised an eyebrow.

"You know… a restroom break. It could happen to anyone," said Ron.

"But you're the one it did happen to, Stoppable." Barkin lowered his head in exasperation and waved a hand to stop Ron from saying anything else. "Go on, I've got a match to watch." He stepped aside.

"Thanks Mr. B," said Ron.

Once through the gate, however, Ron headed to the parking lot rather than the restrooms. He quickly found his scooter and fumbled through the backpack he had left hanging from its handlebars. Eventually he pulled out a make-up compact. "It probably says something about my life that this was here," he reflected to himself.

Gripping the make-up compact tightly, Ron ran back into the tennis courts. He was just in time to see Kim win the first game of the match.

"Hey, go Kim!" shouted Ron as he walked up to the sidelines where he had left the Kimmunicator. His enthusiastic cheer counter-pointed the mechanical-sounding cheers of the Upperton team on the other side of the court.

"Ron!" complained Wade from the Kimmunicator's screen.

"Look, eventually she's going to be unhypnotized, and I don't want her remembering me not cheering for her," Ron explained.

"Did you get the knock-out gas?" asked Wade.

"I got it. Of course, I could have gotten it five minutes ago if you'd told me we needed it," said Ron.

"I would have told you we needed it if you had told me you left it out in the parking lot," replied Wade.

"Oh, this sounds helpful," interrupted Monique as she walked up for what was supposedly her one minute water break.

Ron and Wade both looked embarrassed.

"It's one game for Kim, zero for Monique. May I suggest we have a better plan for game number two?" suggested Monique.

"Don't worry, Ron is on the job," Ron told her. "As ball boy, I'm responsible for handing out the balls. I'm going to make sure Kim gets one coated in sleepy time gunk from the compact. It'll make her too woozy to play well."

"At last, an actual plan," said Monique, her face brightening. "Ooops, they're calling me back. Ron… don't screw this up."

"Why would you think I'd screw up?" asked Ron peevishly.

Monique wrapped an arm around Ron and quickly pulled him close. "Because… Right now you're _here_. And for this plan to work, you're going to need to be over _there_, handing the ball to Kim. In about ten seconds." She smiled sweetly.

"Good point," said Ron. He grabbed the make-up compact and ran for his position.

Monique took as much time as she felt she could getting into her spot. She waited for Kim's serve.

On the other side of the court, Ron took a deep breath and opened the compact. Hunched over to hide what he was doing, he popped the bottom slightly to expose the gunk at the bottom that produced the knock-out gas, and then rubbed a tennis ball into the stuff as quickly as he could. Still on the same breath, Ron straightened up and walked to hand the ball to Kim.

Kim took the ball without comment, tossed it in her gloved hand a couple of times, and then begin her serve. However, the nearness of the gas was already beginning to take effect and the serve, though still legal, proved to be much slower than the one Kim had been attempting to do. Monique was able to take advantage of this and returned the serve with a low shot skimming right over the net. To her credit, Kim still moved quickly enough to volley the ball, but her reflexes were unsteady enough that she knocked it into the net.

"Fifteen, love," called the referee.

"Don't feel bad Kim, you've got it going on! Yeah, just a set-back," called Ron, waving his arms wildly. Behind him, the Upperton players cheered too, though their cheers seemed a bit fainter, as if their mind-controlled hearts were no longer entirely in it.

It was Monique's serve now, so Ron couldn't slip Kim another drugged ball. Monique rushed her serve, though, and was able to slip another point in while the last of Kim's grogginess was still fading.

Having lost a second point, Kim took a moment to stare at the strings of her racquet in concentration. Then she carefully slapped herself across the face twice, using the pain to completely shake off the knock-out gas.

Ron crouched down next to Rufus. "Okay, it's time for Ron to be the distraction once more. I just never thought I'd be distracting Kim. You ready, Rufus?"

The naked mole rat nodded vigorously, then scrambled across the court. Meanwhile, Ron took his place and readied himself.

Once more, Kim tried to return Monique's serve. Just as she stepped forward to swing a near-perfect forehand, Ron began shouting, "Kim, your racquet's on fire! It's burning, it's all aflame."

It was only for an instant, but Kim's head jerked around to look at her racquet. This caused her to miss the stroke, allowing Monique to score yet again.

Kim took a moment to turn and raise her racquet meaningfully toward Ron. "On fire, like doing really well. Good. Keep up the playing," said Ron by way of explanation. He took a couple of quick steps back from Kim, looking nervous.

Monique was already winding up for her next serve, though, leaving Kim no time to chase after Ron if that had been her intent. Instead, Kim seemed to be focusing all her attention on her opponent, obviously determined not to lose this last point and the second game of the match along with it.

Just as Monique served, two sounds filled the air. One was an enormous screech of static from the Kimmunicator, still on Monique's side of the court. The other was a scream of pain from the referee, who had just been bitten in the leg by Rufus. The watching crowd all looked instinctively at the Kimmunicator. The referee looked down at his pained leg. Only Monique, who had been expecting this, and Kim, who refused to be distracted by anything, kept their mind on the game.

Monique made her serve…. The ball landed well outside the lines that would have marked it as in. Kim declined to go after it, confident Monique had just faulted on her serve. Unfortunately for Kim's game, neither the referee or the crowd had seen what happened. There was one apparent witness, though.

"In," shouted Ron. "Saw the whole thing, that ball was in. Monique's point, she takes the game. Sorry, KP."

The referee looked at Ron as he rubbed his sore leg. Rufus had already made himself scarce. "Well, you've been cheering for your friend there, so if you say you saw it go in…. Yes, you're right. I saw it go in as well. Point and game," said the referee.

"That ball was not in." protested Kim loudly.

"I'm sorry; I've made my ruling," said the referee.

Kim just shook her head. She coldly walked back to the Upperton players during the break between games, rather than retrieve her water bottle from the Middleton benches.

Meanwhile, Ron raced around the court to get the Kimmunicator.

"Monique just has to win one more game and she wins the match," Wade told him from the screen.

Ron bit his lip in thought. "Okay, I know I'm not totally up on tennis, but I'm pretty sure that we were playing seven games in a match, not three."

"Special tournament rules. They only do a three game match-up for first and second place, probably because they figure the players will be pretty tired by then," Wade told Ron.

"Don't worry, I've got the perfect distraction to start us off with," said Ron. "It's hitting a little low, but desperate times, desperate measures. Kim will thank me later."

"Okay… good," said Wade. "I just need a little more time. Almost got my spybot in place, and from then on it's easy."

"How is Monique doing?" asked Ron, looking over toward the Middleton benches. Monique was making the most of her break, sitting in a slumped posture as though she were exhausted.

"She's a trooper," said Wade.

The break was soon over, and everyone got back into position. Ron dropped the Kimmunicator into his belt pouch, where Rufus usually rode. Once again, Monique was up for the serve.

"Kim, your parents are getting a divorce!" called Ron as Kim went in for the return.

Kim showed no evident reaction, easily returning Monique's serve. Monique managed to volley once, but couldn't beat Kim's second return. It was the third game, and Kim was up by a point.

"Nothing?" said Ron. "That's cold. That hypno-racquet must have her pretty far under."

The lens on the Kimmunicator hummed as Wade focused it to scan Kim. "That, and the earplugs she's wearing. I guess she figured something was up and decided not to have any more distractions. She's smart!"

"Awwww," said Ron.

The Kimmunicator clicked again as Wade looked at something past Kim. "Well, if it's any comfort, you got some reaction," said Wade.

Ron looked up to see Mrs. Dr. Possible glowering at him from her seat on the sidelines. He gulped and said, "I guess I'm going to have some explaining to do later."

While Ron was chatting with Wade, Kim went and fetched several tennis balls for her anticipated serves, denying Ron another opportunity to gas her with a drugged ball. Ron realized this just as she returned to the serving line and slapped himself in the forehead.

"Don't worry, I've got it covered," said Wade, sounding extremely confident.

Kim wound up for a serve and dropped a ball onto Monique's side of the court. To the surprise of the crowd, though, it landed outside Monique's service court. Kim had faulted. Kim looked just as surprised as anyone, but quickly made another attempt. She faulted again, giving Monique the point.

"Okay, what's going on Wade?" asked Ron.

"Simple. I finally managed to get my spy drone flown out here. It has a projecting hologram system equipped. It doesn't matter where Kim hits the ball from here on, I can always make it look like she missed the shot."

Ron looked up and was just able to make out the drone hovering high overhead. "Wicked, Wade. Very wicked."

"I know," said Wade in a self-satisfied voice.

Monique was up to serve. She dropped it neatly in Kim's serving court. Kim laid out a fast volley across the net. A fast volley that was _apparently_ too fast, as everyone could see it shoot across the court and land well outside the back line.

"What happens to the real ball?" said Ron.

"Complimentary cloak field," replied Wade, sounding more smug by the moment.

"Hey, what's she doing?" said Ron, as Kim took a strange position to wait for Monique's next serve. Kim was holding her racquet low and parallel to the ground.

"It doesn't matter," said Wade. "There's nothing that she can-"

As Wade spoke, Kim returned Monique's serve. Instead of trying to make a fair return, however, she rocketed it up into the sky, putting enough force into it that there was an audible 'twang' from the strings of her racquet. Up and up it went, smashing into Wade's spybot. There was a puff of smoke, and the machine fell out of the sky.

"She_ is_ smart," said Ron, sounding rather impressed.

"Too smart! Monique only needs one more point to win, but I'm out of ideas," said Wade, sounding panicky.

"Then let the distraction buy you a little time," replied Ron. He ran out onto the court and pitched himself onto the ground. "Cramp, cramp! Ball boy on the court, here. Need somebody to help me out. Can't walk on my own, so I'm just going to lie here, delaying the game."

Wade took the opportunity to speak to Monique through her earpiece. "Okay, new plan. I've been recording Kim's playing style in my computer. It's a lot more complicated than the Upperton players, but if Ron can buy us a few more minutes, then maybe I can-"

"I can do it," interrupted Monique. "I only need one more lousy point to win. I can do it without any tricks."

"That's not what my probability analysis says- I mean, I'm sure you can, but a little help never hurt."

"Wade…. Trust me," said Monique. She followed this up by digging the earpiece out of her ear and tossing it away.

Meanwhile, Mr. Barkin had walked out onto the court and easily hefted Ron over one shoulder. "Don't worry Stoppable, you're not going to be delaying this match any longer."

"Noooo! I mean-" said Ron. Whatever he meant, though, Barkin had already taken him off to the sidelines and play was resuming.

Monique had won the last point, and it was her serve. She bounced her ball a couple of times, looking at Kim. Kim Possible had a serious expression on her face, but she dipped her racquet in Monique's direction in what looked like a sign of respect. No more tricks, she seemed to be saying. Let's play this one fair.

The referee called the score one final time, and then the ball was flying through the air. Monique elected to start off with an easy lob into Kim's serving court, one she expected Kim to return. Kim did just that, launching the ball towards center court. This was just where Monique knew it would go, since she would have done the same thing herself. Volley back to Kim's side.

Just for a moment they appeared to be, finally, evenly matched. It began to seem as though it was merely intimidation and fear that had held Monique back, that she could have matched Kim evenly earlier if only she had believed in herself. That was how it appeared… for a moment.

Then, as casually as if she were yawning, Kim switched to an entirely new tennis stance, one that Monique had never seen before and couldn't predict. Kim used this stance to hit a fast volley just skimming over the net to the far right side of Monique's half of the court.

With a burst of adrenaline, Monique somehow managed to reach the ball in time to strike it with her racquet. It was a lousy return, though. The ball popped up, up, up, at an angle and speed that was sure to take it well behind Kim's back line before it bounced. All Kim had to do was just stand there and watch it go out. Inexplicably, Kim did no such thing. Instead she executed an incredible standing high jump to meet the ball in the middle of its arc and slam it hard towards Monique's side of the court.

In desperation, Monique tried something new. She twisted her body in imitation of one of Kim's cheerleader moves, bouncing off the surface of the court into a flip through the air. Just as Kim had, Monique met the tennis ball while it was still in mid-arc. She hit it with all her strength, slamming it into the far left corner of Kim's half of the court. With one hit, Monique won the game, the match, and the tournament.

Of course, there was still a certain difference between Kim's jump and Monique's jump. Kim landed neatly on her feet. Monique landed hard on her back, sending a blast of pain through the entire length of her body. She lay on the ground, writhing in agony.

"Monique!" shouted Kim in concern. She leaped over the center court net and rushed up to her friend, pulling out her ear plugs at the same time. "Are you okay?"

"Every part of my body hurts… I think I strained my back on that jump even before I hit the ground… but none of the fine bones beneath seem to be fractured," replied Monique in a series of short, gasping breaths.

Kim helped Monique get up and hobble over to the bench. The other Middleton players made room as Ron ran up, the Kimmunicator in hand.

"Kim, you're not hypnotized anymore?" said Ron.

Kim looked carefully at Ron, then Monique, and then Wade. "Not only am I not hypnotized, but I haven't been hypnotized today. Was that what all that cheating was about? Because I'm thinking you three owe me an explanation."

"Ummm," said Ron, looking confused. "The racquet you're using. It's from the Upperton team, right?"

"Right," said Kim. She looked at her racquet, which she had still been holding, and she laid it carefully on the ground, suddenly suspicious. "One of the Upperton team members loaned it to me after busted up mine. Why, is there something wrong with it?"

"Only that it's an evil hypno-racquet! It was made by no less than Dr. Drakken and bought by the crazy Upperton tennis coach. He wanted to use them to mind-control his team into better tennis players, but he said a side effect made them want to take over the world. And… none of this ringing a bell, is it KP?" said Ron.

"Not really. But I'm thinking I can get us some answers." With that, Kim made a fast trot across the court to where Coach Rakket was talking to his very confused and no-longer-hypnotized girls' tennis team. Without waiting to hear what they were discussing, Kim grabbed Rakket by the elbow.

"Excuse me, tournament champion needs to borrow your coach for a minute," said Kim.

Rakket didn't offer much resistance as Kim dragged him back to the bench where Ron and Monique were sitting. He seemed to be still lost in his depression over another loss. Behind them, the dazed Upperton players quietly followed.

"Hypno-racquet, yes or no?" asked Kim, pointing at the racquet she had left laying on the ground.

"Yes! I told your sidekick all about it," said Rakket sourly.

Ron stood up. "So when Kim picked one up and started using it, it took her over. Yes or no?" he said in imitation of Kim's gruff questioning.

"No."

"Oh," said Ron. His confidence deflated and he sat back down again.

Coach Rakket explained further. "I had to give my team special drugged drinks before I gave them the racquets, so that they would be suggestible enough for the racquets to take control of their minds. Drakken said it wouldn't work if they weren't dosed first. Apparently 'Mr. Evil Genius' couldn't get it all done in one unit."

"You… drugged us," came the voice of Upperton player Robin from behind them. "You gave us racquets that would take over our minds," added another player. Where before this had been a sign of the synchronization of their racquet AIs, now it was just all of them thinking along the same lines.

Rakket tried to pacify the rapidly growing anger of the crowd of teens. "Girls… team… I just wanted to make you better players. Think of how much your game improved. Why if-"

It was at this point that his survival instincts kicked in and he began running at full speed for the exit gate, pursued by a crowd of extremely angry teenage girls. As he ran, he passed by Coach Barkin. "Better luck next year, Tommy," called Barkin.

"Curse you Steeeeve!" yelled Rakket as he ran.

Kim, Ron, Monique, and Wade (from the Kimmunicator) watched all this in bemusement. None of them seemed to feel much urge to intervene. Kim spoke to her friends.

"So you thought I was hypnotized and you were trying to make sure I didn't take first place in the tournament?"

Ron nodded. "We thought that was the only way to break the racquet's control over you."

"Are you sure you weren't hypnotized even a little?" said Monique. "If my recollection is correct and it is, you were yelling at the Upperton team about how they were imperfect and they had lost and Middleton was going to rule."

Kim blushed. "Not the best sportsmanship, I admit. I just thought they deserved a little trash-talking after everything they kept saying during the games. You know, how they were perfect and Upperton was going to rule? I didn't know they were being mind-controlled, or I would have been nicer about it."

"But then after Monique won the second game, you went over to talk to the Upperton team," said Ron.

"I wanted to tell them to stop cheering for me! I told them that Monique is my friend, and I'd be cool whoever won or lost. That, and their cheering was a little creepy. When you're a cheerleader, bad cheers are like nails across a chalkboard," said Kim.

Ron tugged on his collar uncomfortably.

Kim placed her hand on Ron's arm. "Oh no, Ron. You're good. Lots of enthusiasm, even if you were trying to distract me."

Wade finally spoke. "But Kim, you knew something was up with all the drugged balls and distractions and holograms. Why didn't you say something?"

Kim shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I guess I saw it as a challenge. I figured you guys must have a good reason, but if you weren't going to come talk to me about it, then I wasn't going to talk to you. That's why I put in those ear plugs after the second game. I was getting into mission mode, and I thought I could beat you no matter what you threw at me."

She tapped her lips, considering. "I guess I was wrong. Congrats on the victory, Monique."

Monique tried to get up to offer her hand, but settled back down in a groan of pain. "That last volley, Kim. When I hit it, it would have gone out for sure if you hadn't jumped up and returned it. Why did you do that?"

Kim looked from side to side and blushed a deeper red then before. "Don't tell anybody this. I just got so excited there that I stopped thinking about the rules of the game and wanted to hit the ball back. I've only been playing a few weeks, okay?"

"Sooo, you're not mad, KP?" asked Ron.

"Nah, it's no big. You guys were just trying to help me. I mean, I am a little annoyed that I can't even play one lousy tennis tournament without having weirdness show up, but that's not your fault. Maybe it's even for the best. Tennis was getting a little boring towards the end there, and the evil racquets spiced things up. So I'm not mad. My Mom on the other hand… what did you _say_ to her, Ron?" said Kim.

Ron turned to see an angry Mrs. Dr. Possible heading towards him. He gulped in fear and moved to hide behind Kim.

* * *

Some time later, Kim and Ron sat together in a Bueno Nacho booth, sharing a double-sized nacho plate.

"So Kim, what about all this photographic reflexes stuff?" said Ron, stuffing a cheese-covered chip into his mouth.

"You mean, does it change anything?" said Kim. "I don't know, I've been thinking that maybe if I've got this ability, I should try to do more with it. Try to test its limits and see where I can push it."

"Whatever you do, those special reflexes are pretty rocking," said Ron. "They're… your special edge that gives you the one-up whatever you're doing. Your Kim Factor next to my Ron Factor."

"If it's my special edge, how come I lost that tennis tournament?" said Kim playfully. "I was trying my hardest when I was up against Monique."

"You weren't just up against Monique, though. You were up against Wade's mad skillz and gadgets and Rufus's teeth and my distractions. Not to mention that Monique sprained about twenty different muscles to win because she thought you were in trouble," answered Ron. He thought for a second, then added, "Which means that we're also your edge. But hey, we knew that. Ron Factor."

Kim dipped a nacho in cheese sauce and held it out for a nacho-toast. "To my competitive edge."

"**Kim**petivive edge, Kim," said Ron as he knocked his nacho against hers. "Kimpetitive edge," he repeated.

Kim just rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth were curling up in a grin she couldn't quite suppress.

"So are you going to play more sports, KP?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure if tennis is my sport, but I'd like to give the whole competition thing another try sometime. I'm pretty busy right now, though, with school, missions, and cheer squad."

Ron nodded, "If you do, I-"

The Kimmunicator went off, cutting off whatever Ron would do.

Kim paused before turning on the screen and spoke to Ron. "Busy, like I said. And missions are way more fun than sports."

She pushed the button and Wade's face appeared on the screen. "What's the sitch?"

The End.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Responding to reviews on chapter 4:

Triaxx2 – Ron also thought there would be exploding tennis balls.

DigiSim – Monique is pretty good for a hobbyist tennis player, but she's not professional-level. Wade was helping her take advantage of some holes in the programming of the mind-control racquets. Is Monique's last name Watson? I could never find a last name for her.

Gargoylesama – Kim probably couldn't copy mystical monkey power since it's magic, but there's all sorts of other tricks she could potentially learn to do. I think that both Kim and Ron have a lot of room for growth.

Jezrianna2.0 – I really love writing Drakken and Shego. Their exchanges are just so funny.

And also thanks to campy, Cold-Chaos, AllisterH, Larva Miyu's Servant, and Corencio.

To everyone who named the Taskmaster, thanks but I remembered his name. Comics geek challenge. I know of at least two other comic book characters who have photographic reflexes, one of whom is also a Marvel character and one of whom is not.

I'm sorry that the final chapter took so long to get out. It's been about 10 days. Part of it was that I was away on a trip for a while, but I also had a bit of writer's block. It seems like I ran into a pacing problem where I already used up all my good ideas in the previous chapters and the finale was a fairly obvious wrap-up. I'll take more care in future stories. This may not have been the best chapter, but I hope it wasn't too bad.

I am definitely planning to write more Kim Possible stories, but I am not sure what yet. I have several ideas in mind. Let me know if any of them sound good to you. They are:

A Kim Possible/Venture Brothers crossover. "Are you crazy? Now Drakken's going to send Shego after us, and she's going to go totally sick-house on our (butt)s. Gentlemen, I like my (butt)!"

A character piece on what exactly Shego and Drakken get out of their partnership with each other. (They aren't getting the same thing.)

My attempt to do a big, sprawling, "What happens next" fic with what I consider to be some extremely cool ideas that I haven't seen done before, starring Kim, Ron, Shego, and Drakken in approximately equal roles. I will do this sometime, I'm just not sure if I want to try it next or do another short story first.

"Just Might be a Jerk," looking at Ron's social problems and asking to what extent he causes them himself. As a viewer, I like Ron, but I'm not sure if I'd like him if he were a real person I had to deal with on a daily basis. I'm not sure I actually need to write this one, though. It might be enough to have it outlined for when I write Ron in other fics.

Title only – "Dark Queen Kimberley Can't Lose!"

Anyway….

Overall, thoughts on "The Kimpetitive Edge"? Things I did wrong, things I should have done better? C&C appreciated, because otherwise I'll never learn. I can't help but think that there are a couple of scenes I put in that could really have been cut considerably, but sometimes I just have so much fun writing the characters that they get away from me. Was it too long?


End file.
